PhDr. Milan Michael Buben Ph.D.

"For example, he was received by President Havel. At that time he was supposed to be received at the Castle, but some of his advisors told him that it would probably not be the most appropriate way to receive Habsburg at the Castle, so he received him at the Vickárka Restaurant, up there in those lounges. And before him, when we went there with him, Zbigniew Brzezinski was there with Havel. And Havel sort of let slip it and said that Otto Habsburg was coming there. He refused to leave, he was there in the corner waiting for Otto to come. Well, Otto came there, now he turned around, saw him there in the corner, recognized him, didn't move an eyelash, greeted President Havel normally, and they negotiated together. Because at that time he was giving very valuable and useful advice, it is not much talked about either, and I was there, so I can confirm it, about the Czech Republic joining NATO and especially the European Union, when it was still Czechoslovakia. What are the steps, what do we have to do first and with whom do we have to establish contacts."

"Imagine that I was offered to join the party four times. And now I've been promised a science candidacy and I don't know what all. And I said, 'Well, you know what, go out on the street and ask people who's in the party, and whoever tells you first that he is, give him the candidacy instead of me.' And imagine, the fourth time they promised me in February 1989, that was after Palach week, and I knew that communism was already collapsing. And I was already insolent, I said, 'You know, I can't join the Party because I don't believe in the ideals of socialism.' 'Never mind, comrade, just sign it for us.' That's how degenerated socialism has become."

"Well, this guy, I met him in the corridor after August [1968], and he says to me, 'Colleague...' He called us 'Colleague' even though we were nobodies. So he says to me: 'Colleague, would you be so kind as to come and see me?' I said: 'I can come right away.' And he said: 'Well, it's not convenient for me now, come at six o'clock in the evening.' So I said: 'I'll come.' I was free after all, why not? And then I thought, 'Why six o'clock at night? That's weird.' But I came. And he says, 'To explain why I invited you...' He pulled out a drawer and took out a letter and took a piece of paper out of the envelope and handed it to me to read. Some milkmaid, I've forgotten the name, some milkmaid from the State Farm in Borohrádek, wrote there, denouncing me, saying that as a bourgeois child I had organised the resistance of the youth against the fraternal troops, and that I had made seditious speeches there, and things like that... I read it and I didn't feel very well. I gave it back to him and he said, 'So what do you say?' And I, being brought up, I wasn't used to lying, I said, 'Professor, it's filth, but it's true.' And he, you know what he did? He opened the drawer again, took out the matches, and there was this big nickel silver tray between us, and he burned it in front of me. And I said to him, 'Professor, thank you very much, you saved my studies.' And he said, 'I'll be glad if somebody treats me like that.' Six months later he was fired..."

"By the way, I wouldn't even have been born if it hadn't been for one, I think it was a member of the Gestapo. It was a baron, unfortunately, my grandmother didn't remember the name, he introduced himself somehow. That was during the war, suddenly someone rang the bell. She was home alone, so she went to answer the door. She saw this officer and two soldiers. And she, of course, because she was from that border area, as they were coming across the border for the exchange, she knew German perfectly, so she started talking to him. And he said if he could come in. And she said, 'Well, of course, come in.' So she invited him in. The soldiers had to stay on the staircase, on the landing outside the door. She took him in, she made him some coffee, this chicory or whatever they used to drink in those days, and she had some cake, so she offered it to him. And he was eating and sipping and talking, and when he finished eating he said, 'Well, now to tell you why I came to see you. A report has come that you have poppy seeds at home.' And that was a criminal matter at the time because poppy seeds were a strategic raw material because they were used to make opium for wounded soldiers on operations. There was no proper anaesthetic, so they were given these opium substances. That was a death sentence for that. And the poppy seeds were there at home because we had this farm in eastern Bohemia and that's where the poppy was grown. Not on a large scale, but it was there nonetheless. Luckily she didn't offer him poppy seed buns, that would have been the end of it. So he told her this and then went on. And that sentence has stayed in my head to this day and probably won't leave me until my last moments. He said, 'I should do a thorough search of your flat, but I'm not going to do it because you've been turned in by the Czechs. If the Germans had denounced you, I would have done the search, but the Czechs denounced you and I abhor it (I am disgusted, he said literally), so I won't do it.' So, thanks to this unknown baron, I was then born, because both my father and my mother would have ended up in front of the firing squad."