‘We Will Not Be Ashamed to Say We Are Czech’ : East Europe: One who suffered the aftermath of Prague Spring describes the elation of seeing today’s generation pull off the Velvet Revolution.

I met Anna in Prague on the eve of 1968, when all things seemed possible. She was an angelic student working in a youth hostel. I was a passing tourist. She led me through the gray facade of the Communist state to a magic counterculture of students, artists, seekers of freedom. We were infatuated with each other and with the times.

Shortly after, the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to put down the Prague Spring. Anna, who was in England studying, decided to return home. I never heard from her again. Years later, I found a scrap of paper with her Prague address and kept it out of sentiment.

In December, when the streets of Prague filled with students, launching the revolution that would bring that ‘60s counterculture to power, I sent a telegram of congratulations to Anna’s 1968 address. Ten days later I received this letter, dated Dec. 18:

“Dear Tom:

“It is just fantastic that I’ve got a wire from you. You cannot imagine what pleasure it is to hear from the people who share the same feeling of hope and happiness with us. But, to be honest, congratulations don’t belong to us--I mean our generation. It belongs to the students and young people--well, in fact, to our children.

“We were silent more than anything else for 20 years and we were afraid, having had such bad experiences and a sort of common memory stretching back to 1968. That is no excuse, that is reality. Even now I am afraid in some moments.

“If I speak about our silence I mean it symbolically, because we kept doing something--celebrating various sad anniversaries and being repeatedly caught by police and some of us beaten; organizing funny political jogging events; writing and signing petitions and after that, being called to the police and even being threatened that they would take our children from us (this happened to me)--in a word, we were left in fear.

“All this was a great advantage for young people because they didn’t worry much about our fear, they didn’t share our memory. The result was they had courage.

“They were terribly beaten on Nov. 17 and even now we do not know whether, or how many, dead students there are. But that was the last drop. Since the next morning all Prague was marching through the streets bringing flowers and candles to those places and crying when we saw blood on the pavement and on the walls of houses.

“There were moments we were extremely frightened when the police appeared and we were shouting various slogans to encourage ourselves. I remember the moment we were crossing the bridge (and) seeing the police troops coming across neighboring bridges. People couldn’t stand the fear and started running. We thickened and thickened while rhythmically running and shouting, ‘Stop being afraid’--and we were very afraid.

“Now we are full of hope and we know it is our best chance. We have to win, otherwise I think I could not have survived it any more. There was too much disappointment after 1968.

“I’m sorry you cannot see it--so much enthusiasm, happiness, there is also very much fun and a lot of practical jokes. Prague is all papered and labeled with both serious and funny slogans. Students work on it days and nights. They do a lot of work and we all must succeed. Keep your fingers crossed for us, please, we will still need it.

“I do not live at that address any longer, but I was lucky to get your wire. I got married and changed my name to Cerna. I gave birth to two daughters, Teresa and Katerina, I got divorced and now I live with my daughters and a dog.

“I told my girls how enthusiastic you were when I met you here, and how kind you were to help me to get to England . . . You may not know that I didn’t stay there long because of that Russian invasion. I left England immediately, never to come back, not even as a tourist. That was the time I realized that I wasn’t ever able to leave my country, however stupid and bad and cowardly, and . . . and . . . it was. But now we hope everything will change and we will not be ashamed to say we are Czech.

“I will always be very happy to hear from you again, or to see you again. I’m afraid it is too far, but you would like our revolution, which is given attributes like ‘kind,’ ‘calm,’ and ‘velvet.’ In a way, I am sorry that you live so happily not to have any revolutions.

“Love, Anna”