František Gabčo

“Communication was difficult in the beginning. When I came to work for the first time, the foreman ordered me: ‘Fetch a cudgel.’ I didn’t know what he meant. I brought him a stick, because at home we used the word cudgel for a stick. He told me: ‘What did you bring?’ ‘You wanted a cudgel, so I brought a cudgel.’ ‘No. I wanted this,’ and he showed me what he meant. It was actually a hammer. So this was in the beginning, but a month or two later we got used to it. We eventually became able to communicate well. When we came here, there were many people who also moved here from other places. At first everything here felt quite alien to us. There were many gypsies in Dolní Rotava, but we didn’t meet with them, because we didn’t understand each other. When we went to the pub, there were conflicts because of it. They asked us what we were doing there. I told them: ‘Why should not I be able to sit here only because I don’t talk to you?’ There was a couple of fights. I don’t like to remember this. Then we got used to it and we moved from Dolní Rotava to Horní Rotava, and then everything got into normal.”

“In 1968 I was doing my military service, and I was at the border in full armour. We were assigned to the rocket unit in Klatovy, and we thus served on the front line. Russians were hundred metres away from us, and we were on the other side. This is what happened: We were fully armed, with four or eight magazines, a machine-gun and what not. I thought: ‘Why do we carry all this when we are not allowed to use it?’ The day after I was disarmed and they issued only empty magazines to me, because they feared that I might cause some trouble. The weather was nasty, it was cold and it was raining. So yes, we had a good time at the border. We had no idea what was happening in the cities. We didn’t know that there were tanks there. The troop commander only informed us that a protest demonstration was taking place in the town, but we didn’t receive any other information. They only told us: ‘Be here and watch out!’ After two weeks we left our posts and we returned to the barracks and there was a party with Russian soldiers. They came to our barracks and they were talking with us and celebrating. But it was only for the invited, for their supporters. Those who were like me were not allowed to join them. About two months later we were released from the army service and we became civilians again. We served some extra time and then they allowed us to leave the army.”