Czechoslovaks Defiant

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31767, 26 August 1968, Page 14

Czechoslovaks Defiant

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PRAGUE, Aug. 24

I drove across the frontier from Austria last night into an “Alice in Wonderland” country where the road signs are painted out, torn down, or switched round to baffle the Soviet invaders.

Along the 100-mlle drive from the frontier to Prague I saw few signs of Soviet troops but there was plenty of evidence of how the Cseehoslovaks feel about the Warsaw Pact invasion of their country.

One simple sign, roughly painted and tacked up in half a dozen villages along the road, told the story succinctly. It pointed to the north-east and said simply, "Moscow 2800 kilometres."

Every house along the road across the broad fields and wooded hills of southern Bohemia bears its patriotic ganAlong the railings of a big

hospital hung a row of posters— quite simple, they bore only a large death’s head. The eyes were red stars. On other walls the Soviet red star was daubed up and beside it the swastika.

Under a roughly-drawn picture of Hitler were the words, “He marches again.”

National flags hung at half mast from public buildings. Beside them flew black flags. People in the streets wore in their buttonholes wisps of red, white, and blue the national colours sombrely adorned with a black stripe. Nearer Prague, I passed convoys of Italian and Rumanian cars carrying tourists homeward.

Several times Czechoslovak cars driving towards the frontier flashed their lights at us to stop. Then the drivers came running up to ask anxiously, “How It is at the frontier? Are they letting people through?” There were no Soviet troops south of Taber, about 50 miles from Prague. Then a few tank units could be seen, parked discreetly away from the road in the shelter of some trees. On the outskirts of Prague my car was stopped by a Soviet officer at a checkpoint formed by a

light tank end an armoured carM said I was British and was waved through. Prague Id Ferment

Prague is in ferment Few shops are open and there are long queues outside the food stores.

Crowds wander aimlessly through the streets, gathering rouqd anyone with a transistor radio tuned in to the clandestine radio station or reading the innumerable, crudely-scrawled posters denouncing the Soviet invasion.

There is a virtual student sit-in at the statue of King Wenceslas in the huge square that bears his name.

A youth standing on the flower-decked and beflagged status bellowed through a megaphone inviting people to sign petitions demanding the withdrawal of the invaders.

People scrambled for leaflets thrown from passing cars and for roughly-printed broadsheets giving the latest news.

Number Plates Many wallposters e*ny the number plates of civilian cars said to have been used by collaborators arresting politicians and writers. Reports said that occupants of cars bearing these numbers

bad been stopped and in wm* eases beaten up. Other posters denounced Drabomlr Kolder and Vasil Bllak, two of the hard-line politicians believed to be negotiating with th* Russians to form * Government.

Within three minutes, two Czechoslovaks approached me at a street corner and when they learned I was British begged me to get a message out to their daughter* in England, telling them that their families weep well and that they should not worry.