Bohuslav Halva

"These lousy cloths we got--it was like a wash cloth for the floor: they painted orange circle as a target on the left side, where the heart is, and then on the back on both scapulas they painted red circles. Anyone could see us for miles with such colors. It was a horror..."

"I´m not the one to rule this world, but someone must be obviously. The moon gets down over there, and then in the morning it´s back again. There´s got to be someone or something behind that; it is not possible that it would happen just like that. Every day the sun goes down over there, and every morning I have it back again. And what about other wonders like, the Spring, the Summer, the Fall and the Winter? That´s about the weather, but the Space is so interesting. And, I won´t be laughing at it - all generations of people....And we have already year 2009. Sometimes the guard came to us yelling. He heard some noise from our cell, so he looked through the peephole then opened the door and {incomplete}

"He was sort of talking to me what we will do. He said: ´You know, mister, there´s nothing we can do about this. The communists have all the power in their hands, therefore, we won´t even appeal. Of course, I will say few words just so they won´t complain....´ So I got ten years in jail--loss of civil rights for ten years--ten thousand crowns of penalty, and, in addition, loss of my entire property. They came to our house, opened the closet, and took all of my clothes--all gone. I didn´t have anything left."

"It wasn´t job for me, apparently, managing the shop, because I was a former prisoner. I was sentenced to ten years in prison. The StB agents had different opinion than the director, though. But, the directors always act as the StB wants, all of them. Not today, of course; there is no StB anymore today. Well, there are still the agents, but they are not officiating. They are still here, because nobody shot them--vice versa they all retired. Apart from their pension, they get another eight thousand crowns per month--each of the StB officers gets it."

"There used to be war prisoners in the past, Germans. They got caught by Russians at the very end of the war. They (those German soldiers from the war) were forced to build these concentration camps. They had to go down to the mine to dig for the uranium ore...We got inside ...´So, you´ll spend the night here, later we´ll put you somewhere else! ´ - ´Jesus Christ! ´ I told him: ´And this is where we should sleep? ´ - ´Yes, you have some problem with that? ´- ´ What? ´ There was hay spread on the ground like in a barn. The hay was all black and dirty like they took it straight from the field...Impossible. ´You´ll spend the night here!´ They put the hay there for us so we won´t freeze. On the other hand, the hay really does isolate, that´s true. We couldn´t handle to stay up the whole night, so we sat down on this hay with our backs toward the walls. What an accommodation...."