Tag #150662 - Interview #90536 (Tibor Gohman)

As for Czechoslovakian events [which was called Prague Spring] [17], I was taking part in them. I was recruited to the army again working in a militarized equipment unit.  In case of combat action we were recruited automatically. We were sent to Czechoslovakia. I was commander of the equipment unit of a platoon.  We spent there 3 months. Seeing it all with our own eyes we couldn’t believe the version of Soviet propaganda that Soviet troops invaded the country at the request of residents of Czechoslovakia since Germans were supposedly going to occupy Czechoslovakia and had their armies near the border. We were told that we were going to rescue Czechoslovakia from aggression, while actually Soviet armies invaded the country since the Czechs wanted to pull out of socialism and didn’t want to obey to the USSR demands.  Of course, the USSR couldn’t allow a single country to  ‘leave the socialist camp’, or other countries would be on the run, too.  We talked with Slovaks and understood the situation promptly. They were yelling seeing us: ‘Ivan, go home!’ Everybody understood that we hadn’t come there at their request: this was not the way to greet liberators.  We were not rescuing them, but killing… I understood this clearly from the very beginning.