By Barbara Rust Berring

Our time period at Stanford in Germany, roughly summer 1968 through summer 1970, was intensely eventful and poignant for Czechoslovakia. Many of us Beutelsbachers were fascinated with what it meant to be part of the Warsaw Pact, the conditions of life behind the Iron Curtain. Prague held a particular fascination.

It was on August 20, 1968, that the Soviet tanks rolled into Wenzelplatz (Wenceslas Square) in Prague with the force of some 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops. Earlier that year in January, Alexander Dubcek had ousted the Russian puppet party leader Antonin Novotny. This was followed by the election of General Ludvik Svoboda as President in March 1968. Dubcek and Svoboda believed in a new concept known as "democratic communism", which ushered in their inspiring experiment in liberalization. The period came to be known as "Prague Spring"--the first glimmer of democracy for the Czech people. Censorship was officially abolished in June 1968, but the Soviets would tolerate only very limited deviation from socialist doctrine, and the Dubcek reforms fell well beyond the norms they found acceptable. The freedom-loving Czechs needed to be brought back into line.

What follows here is a series of independent stories, which document in a very personal way what was happening to the Czechs during those stormy months. I rode with Chuck Petty by motorcycle through the DDR (East Germany) in August 1968. We had wanted to visit Prague during our 3-week break, but we could not obtain visas. We had no idea that at the time, Soviet troops were massing along the DDR-Czech border preparing for the invasion of August 20. I was disappointed at the time, but once we learned of the events that took place there, we were happy to be out of harm's way.

Young Boozer witnessed first-hand the violent confrontations between Czech protestors and Soviet police during the 1st anniversary of the Soviet invasion. His account is fresh--written just days after his return to Beutelsbach. Tim Gillespie was there the month preceding these demonstrations. He witnessed the moon landing of Neil Armstrong from a crowded room in a student hotel in Prague. His own reaction to the moon landing relates to his feelings about American mistakes in Viet Nam and his stand as a conscientious objector to the war. He contrasts his response to the reaction of his Czech counterparts, who cheered the moon landing as a slap in the face of their oppressors. I finally fulfilled my wish to visit Prague in August 1970, when two other Stanford-in-Hamburg students and I joined a multinational student charter group. It coincided with the 2nd anniversary of the invasion, and a heavy presence of Soviet troops made certain that there was no repeat of the anarchy that had taken place the year before. Prague was oppressively quiet during those days.

Each Stanford-in-Germany group had a couple of organized field trips during its tenure on the Burg----maybe Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Salzburg. Group XXII was fortunate both in having field trips to Berlin and Prague in Spring1969 and in having Professor Hans Weiler on the Burg to teach about the politics of a divided post-war Europe. Nelson Dong was in this fortunate Group XXII, and he recounts his impressions with an astute sense of history and sensitivity to the politics of Soviet occupation. Nelson provides vivid recollections of things alluded to by others in this anthology: scenes at the Berlin Wall, the "frozen-in-time" quality of Prague, the signs of Czech resistance, eager conversations with Czech students, and "windfall cash" from black market Czech krona.

Bob Hamrdla, Group II and later Director of the Stanford-in-Germany Program, took Group VI on the first field trip to Prague during his tenure as director in March 1961. He penned a descriptive essay "The Golden City" immediately after returning. As a person whose heritage is Czech (actually Moravian---Bob explains that the Czech Republic consists of the two provinces of Moravia and Bohemia), Bob has traveled there numerous times since 1961, even as recently as September 2000. He sends word that the pockmarked facades of the beautiful buildings on Wenceslas Square have once again been restored.