I was born into a family where theatre was part of everyday life.

My father was an actor, my mother was a teacher.

My childhood was happy, until 1968 when the tanks rolled in.

I was thirteen and ran away from home to go to the square.

People were pushing and shoving, no one knew what was happening.

I got a good beating at home for running away like that.

At school and in the theatre, everything depended on what the regime allowed.

There was a strong group at The Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, but the boundaries were clear.

If anyone signed Charter 77, they would be let go.

We wanted to speak out but knew we would not be able to graduate. So we learned to live in two worlds.

The theatre was where I found my freedom.

On stage, you could say things you couldn’t say elsewhere.

Sometimes only in hints or between the lines. Still, we were happy that at least this way we could speak out loud.

When November ’89 came, everything changed.

My husband Peter and I joined the students in Košice.

We stood in front of the crowd and read the messages from Prague.

None of it was planned, it was improvised. We just felt we were in the right place.

We had one telephone and an old shoebox.

People threw coins and banknotes into the box.

When it was full, we opened a bank account in my name.

The shoebox had 69,000 crowns, unbelievable.

Some help came from abroad, even from Switzerland.

These gatherings were full of emotion.

Crowds stood in front of the scientific library.

Everyone wanted to speak.

Workers, teachers, students.

All found the courage to say what they had bottled up for years.

That euphoria has not been matched since.

But soon, the first disappointments came. Bratislava started dictating how to do politics.

We felt they had no understanding for the East, that they did not want to understand us.

Our united strength began to break into factions and personal interests.

After the revolution, Peter and I believed a better era was ahead.

Instead, we were laid off from the theater.

Peter was fired on the spot and I was let go a few days later.

He took it hard. The injustice was eating away at him.

That was when I told myself that the revolution had come to devour its own children.

In the end, Peter couldn’t take the disappointment.

He was a good person, but he didn’t have the strength to fight the corruption that followed the revolution.

In 1992, he passed away. I miss him. He was like a brother to me.