Architect Vladimír Jirout

“I have the impression that he learnt that it was not sedition, but the indictment was on section 79, subversion of the Republic, it was the most moderated [section], then there were two stricter [sections]. He tried to calm me down that it would be maximally five years. Other two [sections] were for ten and fifteen years and for life sentence according to what they chose. Well and they had to follow it. It was in prison in Ruzyně where big bosses had been investigated earlier and it ended with executions. There were corner seats across, there were such chains and there they tied the person in question so that he could not move and they could do whatever they wanted with him. However, they did not use it when I was there. But they surely did sometimes. I heard one of them saying: ‘No, you can´t, the minister forbade it. So I think that minister Barák forbade beating people. That is what I think based on what I heard.”

“I confirmed to them that I had been a member of Scout and then they asked me what had impressed me the most. I answered that it was the time I worked for the International Red Crossed. They were surprised: 'Pardon us?' How? You stinker, it is not true. Jamboree was the most impressive, wasn´t it? I answered them that they had asked me what had impressed me the most and that I said it to them. That it was like that. I spent several weeks in the Red Cross and Jamboree was just a visit abroad. They wanted to make me believe that we were trained for future sedition during Jamboree. I explained them that it was not like it and that it was the Jamboree of Peace. I wanted them to write it there in full. It was the Jamboree of Peace and all invited states participated there. There were fifty states there, from western, eastern, and middle Europe. They did not like it and continued writing what they wanted. It looked like they asked me about something, I answered them something but they wrote down what they wanted.”

“My parents bound such things such as first Czechoslovak Constitution of 1920. It is a national treasure that is deposited in a safe, it is completely their work. They spent one year working on it. The Constitution was approved and carried in 1920 by the National Assembly and they had it bound few years later. It was typed and then they had her copied calligraphically. It is written on parchment. People had neat handwriting at that time. It also had to be bound, it could not be done differently. It is bound in the most precious Morocco leather which my father went to choose to Paris. Morocco leather from goats. My father bound it. It is written on a parchment and parchment is hard to work with. It is a masterpiece to do it in such a way that it holds together. My mother made the mosaic on it.”

“I was finishing my studies at the Faculty of Architecture at Czech Technical University in January 1958 and the defence of my diploma thesis was planned on 4 January. I passed all my exams and also did my basic military service and it was time for diploma thesis which had been reviewed. I was told that I was not allowed to defend it an hour before the defence when the committee was in session. I asked why it was so, I asked the cadre officer and he told me that he did not know and that the dean had to tell it to me. So I waited there, the defences had taken place, they were reviewing my work, my model was there but they could not do anything, they were surprised that I did not come there, why I was not allowed, nobody knew anything. The dean came around 11 o´clock when it had already been finished and I approached him and asked him what had happened. Supposedly I had been told. I told him that I did not know anything and that he knew. He was a little irritated. I realized that he had left so that he did not have to tell it to me.”

“The Red Army came on 9 May and the International Red Cross could work freely. However, they needed helping hands so hey employed me as a messenger. There were more of us working like this, we organized in so-called auxiliary youth service composed mainly of scouts and others. So when I was thirteen years old, I worked as a messenger in the International Red Cross for around six weeks. We did not have any lessons, military hospitals were everywhere. We went to Wilson Station where they brought prisoners released from Terezín daily. We looked after their accommodation and food. There were field kitchens in all monasteries. We sent them there, gave them food tickets and took them to schools where temporary dormitories with sleeping mats were. They were not only prisoners from concentration camps but also repatriates from internment camp. Several million workers dragged from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Poland had been in Germany.”