Jiří Jírů

“Everything was under control, complete control. Even people among themselves were under control. Not in families though, but every building had its so called “house confidant“who was an informer. You won´t remember this as you´re too young. And there was also a so called street committee. They dealt with for example adulteries and such things. In short, one didn´t have a private life, one had to protect it fiercely. We were forbidden to say a word about politics, the state or politicians in public. Once, as children, we created a kind of nonsense language to use among ourselves. We called it “hatlamatilka“. We divided a word, added a syllable before and a syllable after the word but in a reverse order. And we learned to speak it so well that nobody could understand us. Then we heard that a street committee had dealt with the matter and had written up a report on our family in which had been stated: “The children language). solely German when communicating among themselves“ (and we, sure enough, couldn´t speak any foreign Such were the absurdities.“

“I made up a scenario how to get, no, how to buy a second hand car in the West and that I would get it from a young Belgian girl as a present. I had to go to the customs office, arrange everything..I found a young Belgian girl willing to sell me the car but for “official purposes“ it would be a gift. I had a few hundred dollars then. I wanted to buy a Beetle. So, I left for Belgium, had a permission to travel and – now I remember a funny story with the customs officer. He says: Why is she giving you the car? And I say: Hm, I don´t know. Maybe she loves me. And he says: Well, I´d like to have that as well...I ´ll give you my address. They knew perfectly well this was all made up but couldn´t prove it. So, I leaft for Belgium, stayed with a friend and the next morning he says: You have Russians at your home. And I say: Stop it, will you? We´d been telling the same jokes for half a year. This was in 1968. In fact I left a day before the invasion. On one hand I am glad, on the other I feel sorry that I took no photos of this event.“