Antonín Chládek

"Well, it's been around September, October 1968, and I kept talking to my friends, like it wanted to go somewhere. But I can honestly say that it was not out of any political anger. In my case, it was a desire for adventure. Just to leave. I said to my mother, 'Dear mother, I was not accepted to military service, I would have been gone for two years anyway, so I would leave and maybe come back in two years.' Well, I bought a ticket to Vindobona train, passports were issued at that time, I went to Smíchov to the Austrian embassy, where there was a queue of about 500 people. There I got a visa in my passport and off I went. I exchanged then, I don't know how much they exchanged, about 70 shillings for a tourist trip and I didn't have any special means. Well, I went to Vienna, where I was arrested and straight to the usual pre-trial detention, and I was there for about a week. Because of the wanderings - the official reason was the wanderings. 'Do you have any money?' That's what the commissioner told me. I said, 'I don't.' Then you'll have to sleep here, he said. And I was so naive that I thought: to sleep, it's like here somewhere in the office, a bed here, and I'll sleep here. But when they told me to take off my shoelaces and belt, it was clear to me that it would mean jail. Well, I was in custody for about four or five days before the bus arrived, which gathereds guys like me to the Traiskirchen refugee camp, which is not far from Vienna."