PhDr. Mgr. Karel Kavička

"I was looking at him because I hadn't seen him in two years. And I didn't recognize him. The well-to-do man who was forty-three when he was arrested was just a man - it was a skeleton. And I only recognized his eyes. The sunken cheeks, the grey hair. If I'd met him on the street, I wouldn't have recognized him. So we sat down on command and I said, 'Uncle, how are you?' He looked at me and said, 'Fine, Karl, I'm fine.'

"I was saying, 'My job now is to provide for my family.' I was handling my new position fairly well because I was saying, 'I'm going to stand and never kneel in front of them. Even if I'm up to my waist in mud, I'm going to stand. I don't have to look when I go to church to see whether or not I'm being watched. I am free to enroll my children in religion. I can just...' And I really did. I just gained such an inner freedom."

"My mother and I once visited him in Rtyně v Podkrkonoší. I knew my uncle as such a young man, full of strength, cheerful, popular with people, and he was also a bit of a man. Now my mother and I went to visit him on that permit and we got off somewhere and asked where the prison in Rtyně was. So the people sent us and we went up a hill somewhere and there was a camp under the forest surrounded by wires, guard towers. So we came, we had to show a visitor's permit, legitimize ourselves. We went through a few checks and they took us to this brick building on the first floor to a bigger room and there was a table and three chairs. 'Sit here' And that they would bring my uncle. They told us that we couldn't give him anything, that we couldn't touch him or shake his hand and that we could only talk to him about family matters. I remember that. So my mother and I sat there. You know, mom had a bag full of goodies, cakes baked. She was a knitter, and she brought sweaters, gloves, socks. We waited for a while, and suddenly the door opened and two guards came in, and behind him stood in that prison uniform with that cap he took off as he came into the room, and put it under his arm and waited. They said, 'You can sit down'. So he came in, stood behind the chair. He wasn't allowed to give us his hand. And if I hadn't known it was my uncle, who I had last seen two years ago, I wouldn't have recognized him. He was thin, his uniform was hanging on him, his cheeks were sunken... Only the eyes... So we sat down, talked... I was so impressed by his appearance, because I didn't expect it. I knew him differently... Later, when he came back from prison, I said to him: 'Uncle, please, what did you say about yourself in the court? He was in pre-trial detention in Olomouc and he was there for a long time. And he said, 'You know, Karlik, that jail and that trial was a liberation for me.' They didn't beat him or anything, but they put him in a cell that was three by two meters and there was a five hundred light bulb, and the bed was transported to the wall and he had to walk. He had to walk day and night."

"When we came home from the basement on May 9, because there was fighting there until May 9, we came into the kitchen, the windows broken, the roof shot off. In the kitchen was my father's bed, and there was a Red Army man lying there in full regimentals, in those muddy boots, with an automatic over his chest, sleeping, sleeping hard in the covers. That was an unusual experience for me, too. Now we went to the workroom, because dad, when there was a queue, would sometimes make dough and bake bread and distribute it to the partisans. So we went to the workroom and there I saw a hole that was full of glass. Everything was full of glass, even the kitchen and everything. So that's also etched in my memory."