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In communist Czechoslovakia, attempts to reform communism were crushed by Warsaw Pact allies in 1968.
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00:00Mass games at the Strahov Stadium Prague in Communist Czechoslovakia.
00:17Here in the heart of Europe, Czechs and Slovaks were part of an experiment to change the world.
00:24The Communists sought a new kind of society and a new kind of human being.
00:40They sought to erase the past and reprogram the nation's memory.
00:49Popular attempts to reform the system were brutally crushed
00:53in an invasion by Warsaw Pact allies.
00:59Czechoslovakia became known as the Kingdom of Forgetting.
01:08Yet dissent persisted, especially among artists and intellectuals.
01:12Now, with the help of Rarely Seen Archive, those who lived through these extraordinary times
01:21tell their stories of life behind the Iron Curtain.
01:24This is one of the most popular films of all time from Communist Czechoslovakia.
01:36A musical parody of the American West and American big business.
01:42This is one of the most popular films of all time from Communist Czechoslovakia.
01:47A musical parody of the American West and American big business.
01:50A tea-turtling gunman, Lemonade Joe, arrives in Stetson City to convert its townsfolk from whiskey to his soft drink, Cola Loca.
02:03A glass of Cola Loca, I was supposed to say in a tenor's voice.
02:21We couldn't say the name Coca-Cola in the movie because the company would probably object.
02:36So we used an anagram, Cola Loca.
02:39It was criticising different aspects of American life and culture.
02:54The spaghetti westerns also derived from Lemonade Joe.
02:59Ours was one of the first attempts to make fun of the American West in this way.
03:04The film may have been fascinated by the American West.
03:09But many of those involved in making it, like Lemonade Joe himself, felt ties with the Communist East.
03:17I was brought up in a family where my father, a chimney sweep, felt that he belonged to the workers.
03:26So of course he supported their party, the Communist Party, and what they were doing.
03:34I felt the same.
03:39I became a member of the Communist Party too.
03:51A Communist Party rally in Prague in 1948.
03:56With two million members, it was the largest Communist Party in Eastern Europe outside the Soviet Union at the time.
04:05It was also the largest party in Parliament.
04:08But the Communists did not command a majority there.
04:12So in February 1948, they seized power.
04:14I can vividly remember being on campus at my public school in 1948.
04:23And there we understood it was a coup. We were under no illusions.
04:30Václav Havel was born a gentleman's son into a family of affluence and influence.
04:41By his own admission, he was a well-fed piglet.
04:46But his comfortable family life was rudely shaken when the region's strongest democracy was subverted by the Communists.
04:55We were a so-called bourgeois family, which meant that immediately after the Communists took over, the class struggle started against us.
05:08My father owned a restaurant business.
05:13The day the Communists seized power, I can remember my mother went there to get some meat for us.
05:18And she was told she couldn't get it just like that, and that our business was nationalized.
05:34The Communist regime has affected my whole life.
05:37I couldn't study because I was a target of the class struggle.
05:41I did manual labor for years.
05:45I went into military service.
05:49And still today, I feel handicapped that I didn't get a proper education.
05:58By 1950, Czechoslovakia was in the grip of a Stalinist terror.
06:02The show trials staged here were the largest in Eastern Europe.
06:05Almost a quarter of a million people were convicted and 178 executed for political crimes.
06:12Of these, Milada Horakova, a popular social democratic politician, was the only woman officially executed.
06:19She had one child, a daughter called Jana.
06:22At the time of her mother's arrest and trial on bogus charges of treason and conspiracy, Jana was 16.
06:28We were not allowed to be present in court, definitely not.
06:39And I remember the desperate situation at home, since we were helpless and we heard everything on the radio, because it was a public trial.
06:50It was all calculated to create in the nation a sense of terror and fear. Terror and fear.
07:04Each trial literally had a script which the accused had to follow.
07:11After torture, they admitted to their guilt and agreed that their execution was a just punishment.
07:17But Milada Horakova refused to play her role.
07:19My mother was totally unwavering.
07:32In her last speech, she said her conscience was utterly clear and that she had not betrayed anything.
07:39It was something not one of the rest of those involved in the trial, had the courage to do.
07:51I did very clearly.
07:55And I also want to have a full and full responsibility.
08:01And I will accept the trust that will be found for me.
08:05And I will not be found.
08:06I have promised the state security organs that I will continue to remain in my evidence.
08:17This photo shows the manufactured evidence of her anti-state activity.
08:22Incredibly, many Czechs believed the trials were genuine and accepted the verdict.
08:26Under the態度 of her present, she, she could not be excluded and she wasn't able to do it.
08:28She could not be excluded.
08:30Good morning.
08:32We have started with her wrongdoing.
08:34Dr.Milada Horakova in the management of the Raquel.
08:37She was born 25th April 1901.
08:39She was denied with her father, to theuch of the police and the former police.
08:41The police and the former police captain were proceeds along with her wrongdoing
08:46The worst moment was the last visit on the eve of her execution.
09:06It was a very, very bad moment.
09:18She was absolutely calm, composed, we were not allowed even to kiss each other.
09:25There were armed guards standing around us, and she did not stop speaking.
09:35And suddenly she ended the visit herself.
09:39It was horrendous.
09:43Only 40 years later, after the end of communist rule, did Jana receive the letter her mother
09:48had written to her from prison, while awaiting execution.
09:51My only daughter, my girl Jana, the embodiment of my hopes, live, grasp life with both your
10:00hands, to your last breath.
10:07I shall pray for your happiness, my dear child.
10:11I kiss your hair, eyes, mouth.
10:14I caress you and hold you in my arms.
10:21You whom I have held so little, I shall always be with you, and by you.
10:48Excuse me.
10:55I can't read that letter very often.
11:00It still gives me problems even over half a century later.
11:04Excuse me.
11:06At 5.38 in the morning on June 27th, 1950, Milada Horakova was hanged in the grounds of
11:18Prague's Pankrat prison.
11:20But for many, belief in the regime was not undermined by such events.
11:25I have believed in communism.
11:26I have believed in communism.
11:27I have believed in communism.
11:32I have believed in communism.
11:33I have believed in communism.
11:39One day I said, let's go to this village.
11:40They are founding the first agricultural collective there.
11:41We will make a film about that.
11:46We filmed among farmers in Viennici.
11:53They were poor and happy that the cooperative was there.
12:00Maria Košnarová was a member of the newly formed collective who appeared in the film.
12:29The collective was a kind of salvation for me.
12:36Before then, we sowed wheat and picked thistles by hand.
12:44I had to cut everything with a scythe.
12:46There was no combine harvester.
12:54I had had enough of hard work raising cattle.
13:01But when the collective started, everybody was better off.
13:04Everybody.
13:05We would take milk from work.
13:08Plus, everyone had a cow at home.
13:12When I went to the fields, the women used to say, ah, there is our sunshine, because I like to smile.
13:18I have to tell you, I have to tell you, I have to tell you, I didn't understand it much.
13:43The filmmakers drove us to the May Day events in Prague.
13:50They put us in the parade and off we went.
13:55Ultimately, the Communist Party called the tune on what went into the film.
14:02Suddenly, the party called me.
14:09I was told that in the film I had to feature Soviet collective farms.
14:16Stalin, kulaks, rich farmers.
14:20And I couldn't make it unless I did all that.
14:27There will not be socialism without the passage of the village.
14:35Maria still retains her enthusiasm for an ideology which markedly improved her way of life.
14:50We sat on the decorated floats after the harvest and they were filming us.
14:56The floats wouldn't have been decorated if they hadn't been filming.
15:10I miss everything.
15:11We had such a good collective.
15:13We were such a great team.
15:18We had such a great team.
15:22Yet during that Stalinist period, the film's director wasn't allowed to feature the brutal,
15:27sometimes lethal power used to enforce communism in the countryside.
15:31When I returned to the village many years later, I asked,
15:43So were we sons of bitches to make that film or weren't we?
15:50The answer is, we weren't in our souls.
15:52But we had to compromise as there was no other way.
16:00I was a party member and didn't want to get into trouble.
16:13Life under communism in the village of Prepehi in southern Bohemia is captured in this footage.
16:30It is part of a 30-year film chronicle of the village, shot by this local baker and his friends.
16:53I bought a camera and started filming for myself.
17:06I filmed the bakery at home.
17:08And then I started filming for the whole village, so that others would get enjoyment out of my films.
17:23We filmed weddings and christenings and such, because about half the people here still went to church.
17:53I filmed May Day as well.
18:00Of course, you know, everyone was forced to go to the May Day parade.
18:05The communists made a big mistake in taking the land from the people by force.
18:17By doing that, people lost their incentive to work and only did what they had to do to avoid getting into trouble.
18:27And you could see that when we were filming.
18:29They didn't like doing it.
18:31They were not allowed to do it.
18:32They saw a better life for the worker under communism.
18:47Half the population here were workers and they were disappointed that it turned out differently.
18:52There were others who saw they could exploit communism for their own advantage.
19:05They quickly jumped on the bandwagon.
19:13The largest grouping in our village were those opposed to communism, and when they saw where
19:17it was heading, they became scared.
19:25There was so much hypocrisy.
19:27People said one thing at home and another in public.
19:38Communism was a lie, and on that lie they built a whole way of living.
19:46To close that gap between rhetoric and reality, in 1968 the party chose a new leader, Alexander
19:52Dubček.
19:54He introduced a liberal brand of politics, which he called socialism with a human face.
20:01While the Communist Party would still remain in charge, there would be much greater freedom.
20:10Censorship was abolished, people could travel abroad, and elements of the market economy
20:14were introduced.
20:20The reforms made during a period known as the Prague Spring were hugely popular inside Czechoslovakia.
20:29The
20:51Marta Kubyševa was the pop star of her generation.
21:03She embodied the new energy and freedoms enjoyed during the Prague Spring.
21:12On the night of August 20, 1968, these changes finally proved too much for Czechoslovakia's communist allies.
21:21My mother flung open the doors to my room at about three o'clock in the morning.
21:37My two poodles came running through the door and threw themselves straight at my face, as they usually did, and my mother said, Marta, we've been invaded.
21:44I wondered why my mother was so upset, because I could see she was really very annoyed.
21:55If we're invaded by the Americans, what's the problem? What's the big deal? The Americans are here.
22:00I don't know why it occurred to me that only the Americans could occupy our country.
22:11That thinking was instilled by communist education.
22:19In my wildest dreams, I couldn't imagine that the Russians were capable of making this mistake.
22:23Yet, they did it.
22:32Operation Danube had begun.
22:35The first of up to half a million troops of the Warsaw Pact had invaded the country.
22:40They claimed they were defending socialism from Dubček's counter-revolution.
22:44I was with my wife and friends in Liberec, in the north of the country.
23:09Around eleven o'clock in the evening, someone rang, telling us to switch on the radio.
23:12They were announcing that the Warsaw Pact armies were crossing the borders.
23:24We ran out, and we could hear the tanks in the streets at once.
23:27And we joined the resistance protesting against the occupation.
23:30We are listening to the legal free radio station, the head of the Czechoslovakia.
23:41We appeal to all radio stations in Romania, Yugoslavia, please inform about the situation in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.
23:53Please transmit all calls in Romanian, French, English, please.
23:58Let the whole world know the truth.
24:01The worst thing in Liberec was that people were killed.
24:15The tanks came into the main square.
24:20I was there watching it.
24:24I saw a house collapse.
24:31Then a commander from one of the tanks started to shoot all around, and there were more killed.
24:44During the occupation, Marta Kubysheva secretly records the song, which becomes the anthem for opposition to the invasion, a prayer for Marta.
24:52Marta Kubysheva
24:53Ať mír dál zůstává s touto krajinou, zloba, závist, zášť, strach a svár, ty ať pominou, ať už pominou.
25:09Teď, když tvá ztracená vláda věcí tvých zpět se k tobě navrátí, lidé navrátí, z oblohy mrak, z volna odplouvá.
25:34Ta televize se stěhovala podle toho, jak bylo potřebová.
25:36The tv broadcasting studio kept moving to avoid the Russians.
25:45We recorded the song in some kind of research institute, to which we were led clandestinely through holes in the fence.
25:51Ať mi...
26:06My voice was trembling, and I had to do my utmost to control my breathing, because I knew a Russian helicopter was hovering above us.
26:15I remember we came from the recording, and since martial law was already.
26:45in place, an armed Russian soldier pulled us out of the car.
26:54All the time their guns were aimed at us.
26:56I had the recorded tape here, and the cameraman hid his camera under the front seat, and they didn't find it.
27:02They opened the car boot, and found nothing.
27:12It lasted only a short time, but as I looked down on Prague, I thought,
27:17pity Prague is so beautiful, because in a moment I shall be shot dead by some unknown dimwit with a Kalashnikov.
27:22The invasion put an end to hopes of communism reforming itself.
27:35In all, about a hundred people died, and about 400 had serious injuries.
27:40the
27:49On the return of Alexander Dubček, the architect of Socialism with a human face, from his abduction to Moscow,
27:57Marta offered him her very public support.
27:59I said to myself, I'm going to give Mr Dubček all the roses and a lucky medallion of an
28:07angel that I had in a box.
28:12When I suddenly saw Dubček, I knew him only from the TV screen.
28:16I threw myself at him.
28:17He wore the angel on his wrist the following day.
28:34And this made me famous.
28:38So it was symbolic love.
28:39For her support for Dubček, Marta's voice was silenced for 19 years and she was forced
28:50to take a series of menial jobs.
28:54The process of reversing the reforms and removing the reformers, including Dubček, was called
29:00normalization.
29:05I was banned from singing in January 1970.
29:09The new regime kept saying that all they were asking me to do was to express my support
29:16for the normalization process.
29:24But I couldn't do that because I realized that the Iron Curtain was being reinforced with
29:28a layer of concrete.
29:34I knew the skies over Czechoslovakia had darkened.
29:39It was the funeral of Jan Palak, a student who had set himself on fire in protest at the
29:47invasion, which symbolized the grief of a nation.
29:50In the weeks and months that followed Palak's funeral, around half a million lost their jobs
29:55and became non-personals.
29:58The Communist Party purged its ranks of half a million members.
30:01I stayed in the party until 1968, when I grew brave enough, and there were my colleagues, directors and producers, sitting before the party organization, whose members were
30:16crossing out and ticking names, whose members were crossing out and ticking names, I said, enough, I took my party card and threw it at their feet, and since then I haven't wanted to have anything to do with communism.
30:37Ostrova, the coal-and-steel heartland of the Communist utopia, the city, its environment, and its people have been the subject of Victor Kola's photographs all his working life.
31:03But after 1968, Victor's pictures document what became known as the Era of Forgetting.
31:15Conformity replaces belief.
31:17Instead of hope, there is cynicism.
31:20I found that the people were different.
31:29The aspect of fear, that grey look, the deadening of people's energies, the stagnation in people's lives.
31:41The fact that intelligence was pushed into a corner.
31:43I saw these anonymous people who came there and sat down, ornamental bows on the handrails, to cover the rust.
31:59And the guy who's hidden behind the decorations, but who has a comic suit, sneakers, and a hat, which is covering his eyes.
32:08In this picture, I captured what I thought was the atmosphere during normalization.
32:29Apart, uncared-for surroundings, the routine of people going to work.
32:35The young man, a bit like John Travolta in a leather jacket.
32:41The older worker.
32:43The soldier leaning against a tree, which could mean hopelessness.
32:50The routine, the ossification.
32:53It was a moment when the essence of a whole way of life is revealed.
32:57It was the essence of the way of life.
33:07Humour also provided a different perspective on life under communism.
33:13Jaroslav Dolecek, an economist at a collective farm,
33:16made comedy films that exposed the gap between socialist rhetoric and reality.
33:20I was making fun of them, and they realized that.
33:37I made fun of things that interested me in everyday life, and I turned it into satire.
33:42His targets included collective farms,
33:51the black economy,
33:58and political apparatchets.
34:04But making fun of the communists, carried a personal price tag for Dolecek.
34:15One of my sons wanted to study at university,
34:18but they refused to accept him.
34:20There was a note, which said the reason was,
34:29because his father made anti-Soviet films.
34:36A bribe to a senior communist official was now required to reverse this situation.
34:41I came to an agreement with this party boss.
34:55I asked him how much he wanted to be paid.
35:00He said,
35:00you are from Van Berg.
35:02You make lace there, beautiful lace,
35:04and my daughter is getting married.
35:06So why don't you pay for her lace dress?
35:08I said, okay.
35:15And so my son went to university.
35:25Others weren't so easily able to resolve their differences with the communist authorities.
35:33The hit TV series of this era of forgetting
35:36was a communist cop show called Major Zemel,
35:40produced under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior.
35:44This episode about terrorist musicians
35:46was inspired by a rock group
35:48who were to change Czech history,
35:50the plastic people of the universe.
35:52So my father caught up in particular,
35:54which,
35:55he lost 한번.
35:56I fee deze another way.
36:01McDonald's,
36:02I'm going to win.
36:04And Michola.
36:07an mmm a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
36:10a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a f�� s
36:14a a a a a just a a a a rol.
36:14Those aren't likable seen in�� type a a a a that
36:20a a and a still there's no.
36:21To perform in public, the Plastics had to audition for a license.
36:38One of the officials said, cut their hair, send them down the mines, or send them to jail.
36:45After two weeks, we received a letter from the Cultural Center in Prague,
36:48stating they couldn't license us, due to the negative impact of our music.
36:55They said our lyrics were morbid. In fact, I think they were just looking for an excuse.
37:10The Plastics continued performing in unlicensed concerts at unofficial venues.
37:15It was hippies versus the communist state. After two years of constant harassment, they were arrested in September 1976 on charges of organized disturbance of the peace.
37:28They took us to a grave-like basement. It was very depressing.
37:41When they lock you in here, the feeling is horrible at first.
37:46You don't know how long you'll stay here and think about everything you've screwed up.
37:52I was released after five months without a trial.
38:02Only those in the band who had gone to university were given a jail sentence.
38:06The Plastics were arrested not because they were performing against the government and against the regime, but simply because they behaved the way they wanted to.
38:22And the communists hated that.
38:25Václav was very interested in what was going on with us.
38:45When we were in jail, he collected signatures for a petition, even from abroad.
39:01And then we got the idea to create something more permanent, and not just to concentrate on this one court case.
39:07In that atmosphere, Charter 77 was born.
39:18On January 1st, 1977, a Charter for Human Rights in Czechoslovakia was published, and a dissident movement founded.
39:30Sure, plastic people contributed to the foundation of the Charter.
39:33There was a price to be paid for such dissent.
39:46This dollar-check film satirizes a society where oppression and surveillance played an increasingly large role.
39:53The leaders of Charter 77 were the subject of special attention.
40:10That special house, what you see now, it isn't dream of Corbissiere, but I think more dream of George Orwell, because it is a house of police which it built three months ago, and the whole day, every day, they leave inside, and they follow all my steps.
40:28And everything what I do in my country house.
40:45Sometimes they are here also during the night, but mainly only during the day.
40:51They are my new neighbors.
40:58I am sorry for that short interruption, but police car drive around our house, and we are a little bit afraid that they see us.
41:19The police were all around my house, and there was a policeman in uniform who kept following me all the time, and was always a meter behind me.
41:34And once I decided to walk the dog round and round the garden, and he was following me, of course, round and round too. And a friend of mine filmed that for the BBC.
41:47They weren't spying on me secretly. It was quite blatant, the surveillance and restriction of my freedom of movement.
42:01Sometimes I really couldn't leave the house. I couldn't even go shopping for groceries.
42:08Today that might seem funny, but back then it wasn't pleasant at all.
42:20Later that year, Havel was sentenced to four years imprisonment for sedition.
42:27For those outside the dissident circle, many tried to live between the gaps in the regime.
42:39At work, as this dollar-check film makes clear, cynicism and decline characterized communism's final two decades.
42:46The attitude of, we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us, became increasingly prevalent.
43:01Although some workers remained ideologically committed.
43:08This is the gold star of the hero of socialist labor.
43:11It's the climax and a reward for my lifelong work, the highest Czechoslovak civic decoration.
43:22It was presented by Komrak Hussak, our president.
43:25An unforgettable experience. I felt like a hero then, and I feel like a hero today.
43:42As a star worker in the coal mining industry, Rudolf Vasilczo enjoyed a good, well-paid life under communism.
43:50At that time, the only place to make money was in mining.
43:56It was three, four, even five times more than the normal salary of a factory worker.
44:04We could have bought anything we wanted.
44:10Many times we made the money, but there were very few goods in the shops.
44:16The team that I led broke four Czechoslovak records, and made 72 increases in speed.
44:27We wanted to make more money, and to fulfill the plan for construction output.
44:34If an enterprise did not fulfill the plan, it meant catastrophe for everyone.
44:43Everything I've achieved has been helped by the Communist Party.
44:49And that is where I will stay. I will not change my coat.
44:52If it is true, I will not be able to reach my coat.
44:53And that is where I should retire.
44:54I cannot change my coat and support.
44:56It is where I am.
44:57Prague's enormous Strahov Stadium.
45:17Every five years, 16,000 athletes performed a display of mass gymnastics
45:22before over 100,000 spectators.
45:25It's called Spartakiada.
45:29Such displays demonstrate a communist reshaping of history,
45:33as a national tradition is adapted for political ends.
45:43Spartakiada was an attempt to present communism as an enormous force
45:47that influences everything.
45:49It's hugely important and takes care of the people.
45:55We knew for certain that the communists were abusing our games.
46:07They were abusing us, the work of ordinary people,
46:11in order to boast of the achievements of a socialist physical education.
46:14But I'll say it in a slightly vulgar way.
46:20We gymnasts didn't give a damn.
46:23The gymnasts wanted to be there and wanted to perform.
46:25They had the most beautiful experience of their lives.
46:38The gymnast's most famous piece of gymnastic choreography,
46:49the Buds, became a national sensation and hit polka disco number.
46:55The costumes, the weather, the girls, the Buds' performance
47:00came off perfectly in all respects.
47:02It always fills you with joy.
47:10I was on the captain's bridge directing things,
47:13counting three, four, one, two, three, four.
47:18And the sense of fraternity was terrific.
47:21It's true that for those who were deeply harmed
47:36by the communist regime,
47:37we were contributing to the glory and honor of that regime.
47:41I never took part in a Spartakiada.
47:56I never went to one.
47:59I saw it as an expression of megalomania.
48:02But there were to be no more Spartakiadas to satirize.
48:24In November 1989, the Czechoslovak people,
48:32following the collapse of the Berlin Wall,
48:34took to the streets.
48:36It was people power against the communist regime.
48:40And the people won.
48:43During this bloodless velvet revolution,
48:46the forgotten voices could be heard.
48:49After almost 20 years of enforced silence,
48:52Marta Kubisheva sang in public again.
48:58They pushed me out onto a balcony saying,
49:01just a little prayer we need here, Marta.
49:03I thought, geez, now what do I do?
49:06I forgot the words completely.
49:08But when I looked down and saw all those people,
49:10I thought, no singer ever had this kind of comeback.
49:14That was the moment when people started to cry.
49:16Czechoslovakia's leading dissident
49:37became its first freely elected head of state
49:40in over 40 years as communist rule,
49:44but not its impact, came to an end.
49:51A climate of moral devastation was created,
49:54which we will be dealing with for a long time to come.
49:59Two new generations will have to grow up
50:01before the footprints of communism are washed away.
50:04The last steps of communism were destroyed.
50:11Communism's attempts to reshape history
50:13and to reform itself both failed.
50:16At the end,
50:17the people rejected every face of socialism.
50:21Yet the legacy of 40 years of communism persists
50:24and memories are still fresh
50:26in the kingdom of forgetting.
50:28Next time,
50:32the lost world of communist Romania,
50:35where Nicolai and Elena Ceaușescu
50:37created socialism in one family
50:39before meeting their end
50:40in front of a firing squad.
50:42The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:44The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:45The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:46The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:47The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:48The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:49The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:50The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:51The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:52The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:53The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:54The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:55The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:56The lost world of communist Romania is the first time to come.
50:57Transcription by CastingWords
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