Karel Hás

“They were looking for volunteers to work in Škoda in the factory, and Chinny offered himself for the job. They had a lot of casts and didn’t want to move them from the camp to Škoda. The prisoners were supposed to clean them directly in the factory. They took Chinny and the whole group to Škoda in the morning, they worked at a railway construct. He excused himself from the guards, saying he needed to go to the toilet that was reserved for the prisoners. It was St Joseph’s Day and Chinny was small and ginger. That was his luck. He escaped through the toilet into the workshop, into the changing room, where he changed into an overall, and he managed to walk out past the gate keeper. He was lucky, because it was Joey’s Day and there was a drunk boy lying in one of the other changing rooms who was small and ginger. The guards called off the search.”

“ ‘We know you would go to lay flowers at the American army memorial on American Avenue in Pilsen tomorrow (it was the 4th of May 1949). For this reason we have taken you into preliminary custody, because we expect more such activity tomorrow.’ That was how they talked. It was in the afternoon, around four, and the interrogator says: ‘So, you haven’t told us anything, boy. We need to know where in the garden you hid the weapons.’ I said: ‘Me, in the garden? We don’t have a garden and neither does our Scout troop.’ - ‘No matter, you’re lying to us, you have the weapons somewhere! You’ve got until morning to think it over. You’ll tell us in the morning.’ It wasn’t morning the next day, but the one three weeks later.”