Tag #154177 - Interview #90538 (Ignac Neubauer)

Actually, I didn’t bother about the life in the USSR. However, 2 events stirred up my senses. This was invasion of Soviet troops to Hungary in 1956 16 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 [Prague Spring] 17. These were my countries and I was very concerned about the invasion. I understood that it was the policy of the USSR to suppress freedom and exterminate those who wanted changes in the existing regime in the USSR and socialist countries. Subcarpathian troops also took part in those events and people coming back from there told us that it was different from what newspapers wrote about them. The official version was that the government and people of these countries requested the USSR for military assistance, but if it had been true would the people meet their liberators with the slogans ‘Ivan, go back home’, and likewise? Of course, I didn’t speak my mind: I didn’t want to be sent to GULAG after I was in a concentration camp. I knew many people sentenced to 10 to 25 yeas of imprisonment for expressing their unhappiness or telling an anecdote, therefore. I tried to keep my tongue behind my teeth.