“When I was getting ready to come here, to the Czech Radio, and when I was telling about it at home, I realized one quite interesting thing, that until now I had never told this to anyone. No one has ever asked me about it” Tomáš Sochor, 2008

    “A crazy coincidence started all these events because in August just before the invasion, I was vacationing in Austria in the Alps, the weather was terrible and I was soaking wet and freezing, because it was snowing there, and so I decided on August 20th that I would return from my vacation early. So on August 20th I came back home unexpectedly, and I slept through the night. My mom woke me up in the morning and told me that we were being occupied by Russians. 

    It was quite a shock for us, but I decided almost immediately that I would go to downtown Prague because I wanted to protest the occupation or something like that. I was 25 years old, and I had been convinced during my life that it is important to be engaged in public matters, and was clear to me that these events were crucial to our lives. So I decided to go to Prague.

    I lived in [the village of] Hodkovičky that is quite far away, and so I walked from Hodkovičky along the river until I reached Jirásek bridge where I saw the first Russian soldiers on armored vehicles. And as I walked through Prague, there were Russians, people were explaining to them that they had no business being here, that they were occupiers, they looked puzzled, like they did not quite know what was going on. And so I finally got to the Radio Building. And here I witnessed these events. First, there was a burning Russian tank that can be seen on a number of documents from that era, so we were standing around and were looking at it, and I was coincidentally trained as a tank operator during my military service, so I knew these tanks pretty well. Well, we were standing there around the tank and watching the burning tank. The Russian soldiers were trying to extinguish the fire, they kept running to the tank with an extinguisher, but it did not work, so we all were laughing at them and clapping. Then another Russian tank arrived, and a young guy with a Czechoslovak flag jumped on top of the tank and was waving the flag for the crowd’s entertainment. And I eventually got closer to the corner of Balbinova street and from there I watched the events as they unfolded. The guy on the tank was still waving the flag, so the tank driver was trying to knock him down by maneuvering and turning the tank, and people kept laughing because the guy was holding well. And in that moment, I do not know which of the Russian soldiers shot the guy dead with his automatic gun. In that instant, the spectators got scared and started running away, and I think that the other Russian soldiers who were sitting at the edge of the sidewalk and on the armed transporters, when they heard the shots also got nervous and started shooting as well.

    The first shots fired from the machine gun went over our heads, to this day there are still visible bullet holes in Balbinova on the facades of the houses there. And so as they fired over my head, I turned around and bent down and was trying to get through the door into a house, and at that very moment a bullet hit my shoulder. I was shot in my shoulder blade, and the bullet followed the bone and shattered my shoulder joint. I also noticed something unfortunate and strange, that, as we were pushing each other into the house and I was shot in the shoulder, I was pressing my shoulder against a 15-year old boy, and somehow the same bullet killed that boy. He was shot in his spine. We both were transported to the Londynska hospital, and he died there within hours.

    They tried to save the boy first, then it was my turn to have a surgery. The bullet cut through a number of muscles, and I suffered thirteen or fourteen broken bones.

    In Londýnská I spent some 10 days, I was more or less semiconscious all the time, I remember only glimpses when I was awake because I lost so much blood, and I remember that people came to visit us with flowers, they told us that the National Assembly was discussing us  being named as national heroes and such, the Austrian TV came to film us, but later we received other news that they wanted to accuse us as counterrevolutionaries who resisted the invasion, and that we would all be imprisoned and so on, so the health care personnel in the hospital apparently destroyed our medical charts and sent us all home.

    I stayed home for about a month, and then the situation calmed down and I returned to the hospital where I had a regular surgery on my shoulder. Even now, I still have many metal pieces and screws and so on there, they fixed the shoulder with all these screws. And then I was sent for rehabilitation to Kladruby, where they helped me regain some mobility because, as I said, there were seriously damaged muscles, joint, and bones. They were relatively successful, although I can move my arm only within a limited range. I was out of work because of the injury for 9 months, and, well, that is the end of my story.

    My injury is permanent, it was extremely extensive. It’s true that it limited me in most sports that I used to do before. For instance in volleyball because I am not able to raise my hand. I have pain in my arm permanently, but not only that, it may not look like it, but when you have your shoulder damaged, over time it also damages your spine, and when your spine becomes damaged, it results in damaged hips. The consequences effect the whole body, so today, 40 years later, not only do  I have a steel shoulder, but also a ceramic hip joint, and I have troubles with my spine and so on.  The pain is permanent.

    Everyone was celebrating us as heroes, that we were not indifferent and that we played an active role, but that interest in us gradually faded away to the point that in the 80s, many people did not even want to talk about it. After the year 2000, a new law passed that would compensate those who suffered harm during the occupation, and we were supposed to receive some indemnification. To my surprise there were many who blamed us for receiving our compensation from their taxes. And many were simply jealous of the money that we would receive. Considering that the maximum sum was 70,000 [Czech Crowns, ~ US $ 3,500] for a serious injury, the same level as one month’s salary of  a senator, it was quite insignificant measured by what we all had to go through. As it turned out, that law was written in such a way that we got nothing in the end anyway.

    On the other hand, at the beginning I thought that some compensation after 40 years would be completely irrelevant, but that society should recognize us for our actions and sacrifice instead.

    I must say that I still strongly believe that people should be involved in public affairs and should not just stay at home.”

The story was broadcast by Cesky Rozhlas 2, on August 19, 2008. (Translation by Prague-a-la-Carte)

“Dnes ... zjištujeme že skutečnými hrdiny té doby jsou pro nás “bezejmenní” hrdinové z ulic Prahy a ostatních měst “

(“We are starting to realize that the true heroes of that time are for us the “unknown” heroes of the streets of Prague and other cities”)

Pavel Kosatík, 2008

A young man on a Soviet tank is waving Czechoslovak flag. Near the Czechoslovak Radio headquarters on Vinohradska Avenue, Prague, August 21, 2008 morning  (Photo Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos)