189sengers to set up meetings even when
their phones were bugged. At a certain
moment we were able to arrange smug-
gling trips every two weeks.
Were you expanding these activities?
Yes, for example to include social
activities. Let me give an example. We
were co-publishing a bulletin and in
one of the issues we published a list
of all Czechoslovak political prisoners
with detailed information about them;
the cause of their imprisonment, their
prison location, home address, etc. Not
long afterwards, Polish parishes and or-
ganisations became involved in helping
these individuals – they would send let-
ters to prisons and care packages to their
families. This was real help.
And where did the idea to organise op-
position meetings in the Kłodzko Valley
come from?
In 1987 Petr Pospíchal (one of the
signatories of Charter 77 – editor’s note)
was arrested for publishing samizdat and
maintaining relations with Polish Soli-
darity. We organised a huge campaign
to have him released. We prepared fly-
ers and organised demonstrations, and
it succeeded. After that we realised that
we wanted to better co-ordinate all of our
activities and thus came to the conclusion
that it would be a good idea to meet in
person. We decided that the best place to
meet would be Borówkowa Mountain –
a place where a few decades earlier dis-
sidents from both of our countries had
been meeting. We played a game with
the Secret Police, leading them to believe
that our meetings and exchanges were
to take place at a different location – in
the Karkonosze Mountains.
I remember that Jacek Kuroń brought
some whiskey and the Czechs brought
nothing. To excuse them, Vašek HavelCharter 77
Charter 77 was a Czechoslovak human rights move-
ment. The indirect cause of its emergence was the sign-
ing by the Czechoslovak authorities of the Final Act of
the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.
It took place in 1975 in Helsinki, where the countries of
both sides in the Cold War agreed, for the first time, to
obey the same rules of conduct in international rela-
tions. The signatories of the Final Act agreed to respect
a wide range of human rights issues. The direct cause of
the Charter’s establishment was the court trial of a rock
group called The Plastic People of the Universe which
took place in the autumn of 1976. A few months later, in
January 1977, the Czechoslovak dissidents (especially the
Czechs, as the Slovaks were less engaged) announced
the founding declaration of the Charter. It was signed
by almost 250 people, among them three writers: Václav
Havel, Jaroslav Seifert and Pavel Kohout, the minister of
foreign affairs from the time of the Prague Spring Jiří
Hájek and the philosopher Jan Patočka. The latter paid
the highest price for his signature as he died after a brutal
interrogation. Other signatories also experienced repres-
sions; either in the form of imprisonment or sacking from
work and other kinds of pressure.
In the following years the Charter declaration re-
ceived even more signatories, however it was always
treated as an initiative of the intelligentsia and never
transformed into a mass movement (unlike the Polish
Solidarity movement, for example). Yet, the significance
of this initiative should not be underestimated: its signa-
tories issued many important declarations, were trying
to control the actions of the authorities who could no
longer break citizens’ rights and made sure that infor-
mation about the breaching of these rules was made
public. After the Velvet Revolution numerous activists
associated with the Charter became members of the
new Czechoslovak government and had a direct influ-
ence on the shaping of the country’s new politics (ZR).A friendship that bore fruit, Interviewer: Zbigniew Rokita Poles and Czechs across generations