Tag #136484 - Interview #77987 (ladislav porjes)

They threw me out of journalism for the fourth time, and this time for good, after the occupation in 1968 – they recalled me from Germany from the position of foreign correspondent. Not long after, in the spring of 1969, they also fired me from the radio as a ‘counter-revolutionary’ – for I had returned from a trip through the Baltic countries with reportages in which local intellectuals denounced the entry of Warsaw pact troops into Czechoslovakia. This time the comrades’ patience was at an end. This time they no longer talked about preventive measures against Zionists and cosmopolitans. This time it was a final elimination of all ‘enemies of socialism,’ not only from public, but also from civilian life. My journalism career of eighteen years ended. It was only a temporary, perhaps a little longer pause between three phases of my racial or political discrimination, if there was really any difference between the two. That which now awaited me was the irrevocable end of any meaningful activity. During this time and in the following months I often heard slurs and allusions to my Jewish origin.