Josef Dostál

„It was in a kind of cautious spirit, because a lot of guys were joking that there were even militiamen in uniform. Because the directorship didn't know how to do the funeral. Obviously, I think he [Evžen Plocek] was an important worker, he was a partisan. And they didn't know what to do with it. So they called in a relative, they did it there, because of all the pressure of Evžen being so well known. Probably no one from the company's management didn’t dare not to do so. That they had to do some ordeal. He trained there, was there for a long time and was known.“

„If someone filmed or recorded it, even that's possible, but the person was troubled and had tears in his eyes, so he didn't look much. I know that Evžen's parents, the grandfather, folded his arms: 'Evžen, what did you do to us?!' Such a gesture is very tragic.“

“As my father-in-law met him somewhere and later he told us that Evžen wasn´t himself on that day. They met on the street and said hello as they were brother-in-laws in fact. And every time, Evžen would say: 'What are you up to? Where are you heading?' But this time he would just walk pass like he was druged. 'Hello.' 'Hello,' and of he went so he wouldn´t stop him, so he would ask no questions.”

“I was told I could work at Motorpal, a mechanical engineering plant. It all went behind the scene, of course, as my relatives most probably spoke to Mr Plocek, as I realised later. And he said, and I remember that quite well as my wife told me: 'I won´t be pulling no strings because of him. If he wants to learn something he has to start working at tool manufacturing department. As tool manufacturing department is the heart of the factory.”

“So I was brought in as a groom who went to meet his future wife´s relatives. And we also visited the Plocek´s family and I was introduced to Mr Plocek for the first time and also to his wife. And I must say that I was surprised by the warm welcome they gave me, as I knew, of course, that he was this high ranking official at the Motorpal Enterprise in Jihlava. As I said, I was looking up to him , as I had been telling myself that I would like such a thing, as it had been quite a big enterprise, and me, I had been working for the city, fixing refridgerators. So I got to know him. They lived in a flat in Leoš Janáček Street not far from here. And I was nervous, I admit, but he made me feel alright by his attitude that... Of course I knew he was this big man in Motorpal, but he was such a charming man with this great charisma, he would come to you and say: 'So nice to see you, just come in.' I had been expecting that he would be testing and examining me, but that wasn´t the case.”

“So there was this funeral, you had heard about that from Mr Fürst, that´s a very nice interview I would say. I was standing by the grave as one of the relatives. His brother was there with his wife and his whole family. And there was also Jirka, Evžen´s son, who was fourteen years old, he had been standing there. An interesting thing was, and I´am still thinking about that, that he didn´t cry. He would just toughen up and didn´t shed a tear. The young one, Jirka.”

“I remember that... As we would go to have dinner with parents almost every day as a young couple, my mother-in- law would say: 'I spoke with Zdeňka, Zdeňka went to hospital. Evžen is there, he´s burned all over his body.' So we knew that he was under guard, supposedly, and they turned back everyone except his wife. She was the only one they would let near him. And she cried, of course. She came back, it was quite hard, and she said that she didn´t understand why he did this. All of us, the whole family, we had been just looking at each other, saying: 'Why did he do this? Why? We just don´t understand.'”