Vlasta Bidrmanová

"After that, they were trying to get me to join a lot, and I was refusing hard not to, even with other colleagues. So we came up with a ruse - it may seem ridiculous to you - at that time, the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Union was founded and Russian groups started coming to us, always in the summer, one in July and the other in August. Of course, there was also supervision with them. They were mostly young boys from the Ural Mountains, miners, and every time they arrived there was a welcome event. That was something so beautiful, we sat with them, had vodka and some champagne under the table and we had a good time, we all knew Russian. Excellent people, they were disciplined in their procedures. One group, they were cheerful guys, they said what they were going to do, they asked if we had any work for them. I said we have a cottage here three kilometres above Jáchymov. They asked if they could help. I tell them: Don't help, but come. We had an accordion player there, and then about eight guys came to us, our whole group at Suchá used to sit and sing with them, such wonderful people. But they said: You mustn't tell anybody. I asked them if they were forbidden to talk to us. No, but they're watching us, they said. Then we did a collection, because they mostly had small children, so really as a charity, four suitcases, things for children. They were amazingly grateful, and the one guy kept writing to me for a long time. So we had these experiences. So by being in the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Union, the Party gave me a break. Of course, when I went to Kuwait, for example, I got an anonymous letter: so you couldn't join the Party because you have small children, but you could leave them, you could do that, to collect dollars. I still have that letter hidden somewhere, I don't know who wrote it to me."

"My dad was in the army in Pilsen, where they moved when my mother's parents died very young. He got an apartment from the army. When KAN was founded, he joined the Club of Committed Non-Partisans. We lived in a street where all the soldiers were. It was a wonderful childhood. Everybody knew each other and was friends. None of them were in the party, I don't know about anybody. Then, when 1968 came, it was still working somehow. Then, in 1969, he was transferred to Bechyně as a punishment, which lasted another year. Then he had news that they were going to expel him from the army, so he resigned, got a minimal severance pay, and in 1971, he became a TV technician in Prior, which was new in Pilsen. And he was so happy, unfortunately only for four years. Since that was his domain, he even managed to get a colour television."