Vít Chaloupka

“I wore only Western clothes — this was brought to me by bus drivers or foreign tourists I was friend with from the Europe hotel. Whether I saw this just for the rest of the society? Would you have thought about it like that yourself? I just did my work and never asked myself questions like these. I had what I got too and if someone else had been in my place, they would have had it, that is for sure. This was how it was and today it is quite the same, even more complex, it is not worth talking about. And justice? I had very nice clothes and was happy that I had something exceptional.”

“Money exchanging was officially banned but I would like to emphasise that compared with today, we had nothing in common with any real criminal activity, it was just innocent. We kept the foreign currency in the country, just exchanged them — the foreigners were happy, we were happy, the country was happy. Compared to today’s shady business we did nothing wrong. Yes, our activities could be looked at askance, but all currency remained within the Czech Republic. Now all the money is gone, stolen and taxpayers must pay for sins of gangsters and villains. Nobody had to pay anything for me, I never stole anything, just exchanged money to foreign tourists at a rate that was better for them. Naturally, we used this to improve our standard of living but we never stole anything from anybody.”