Jiří Král

"The houses in the Old Town by the little park got the worst of it, my father helped remove debris there. Part of the Masaryk School building, one of its wings, was destroyed, too. Even the bridge. And it wasn't until the morning of May 10th that the Red Army arrived here. Photographs of the event exist, with girls dancing in national costumes. There was a lot of rejoicing. The officers took photos with the museum on the Church of Czech Brethren Square. Then they made camp at Krásná louka (Beautiful Meadow) and, of course, thinking they were at home, they threw grenades into the river and killed all the fish. They bathed there and took the horses nervous. "

"I liked my second year in Brno, I managed to arrange it all. On Saturdays, the boys were interested in finding a way to go out in the evenings. And so, I would take the Saturday shifts, because they were quiet and the army officers weren’t there. And after those shifts they had to give me Sundays off. That means I could go to town and go to church. So I worked it all out and the boys were surprised why I wanted to take shifts on Saturdays."

“In 1970, when it was clear that Scouting would be merged with the Pioneers again, we did one more camp up by Jindřichov, and I knew that when the camp was over, I wouldn’t get the boys together any more, we wouldn’t meet up again. Although some parents thought or were interested, and some troops tried to struggle on in various ways. So it was kind of... And because I didn’t call them together, I was basically left alone, and when the liquidations began and the other troops had to hand over property and lists of people and who knows what, surprisingly enough, I was spared of all of that. But it was sad, obviously, I’d loved to have seen the children again, but how was I to tell them about it.”

“As far as that goes, the Catholic troop was pretty much an illegal enterprise, but it was noticed, so right from my youth all the way through business academy, through military service, through all my jobs, I had this mark, assessment of being ‘religiously burdened’. And so, for example, I wasn’t qualified for any kind of career progression or bonus. That was one thing. And then one time, they summoned us one by one to State Security because the one older brother, who mentored us, was secretly studying to be a priest. Well, so of course they started questioning us and asking things, looking for information. It was an unpleasant situation overall.”

“In 1938, when the border region was occupied and Ordners [Sudeten German paramilitary - trans.] were already wreaking havoc in Varnsdorf, Dad was first notified that he should send me and Mum inland, that the Ordners would be coming, because they’d done various provocations there beforehand, coming over from Germany as well. The chairman of the district office had Dad arrested again, and like in other places in Bohemia or other Czech officials, he was taken to Dresden, or actually Magdeburg, where they were interned in the Crystal Palace until the beginning of December.”