Ivan Malý

"Do you regret now, that you used to be a Communist?" "Yes, yes I do. I regret it, because when I was a boy I imagined something much simpler. I told myself: 'How can I have such a stupid father.' And suddenly I realised, that my father was an awfuly clever man, wise, even saintly I would say. I regret that the most, that I didn't respect my father."

"We were brought up to great patriotism in elementary school. The Germans and us hated each other. Dobřany was a half-German nest in those days. It's laughable now, for instance one baker behaved downright nastily to Czechs. When we went by, we threw stones at them. And when we had trouble at school because of it, our teacher took a stand for us. The Germans in Dobřany really behaved like true Sudeties. Sudetan Germans. At every opportunity they had anti-Czech speaches. That German baker for instance claimed that come Spring, he would be using Czechs as manure."

"When you were sixteen, what did you think (about the mobilisation of 1938, the Mnichov conference)? Was it a challenge?" "No, no. It was awful!" "What did you see during the mobilisation in September 1938?" "We knew some soldiers, and when they were returning from the fortified positions, we asked them what happened and why they had to leave. We were all mortified by it." "What do you think today? Should we have fought?" "Yes! Yes we should have! Because like this it seemed to the whole world as if we had accepted the ocupants. Mussolini declared that if a nation does not fight against ocupation, then it deserves it. It's neccessary to find the courage to stand up against a much greater opponent."

"You were a Communist during the war, what did you think of Communism?" "That it's a new way. All of us in our group believed that. We had nothing against it." "Nationalising? Communal property?" "Yeah, yeah, we kind of counted on that. At the time this Dušan Sova established the Association for the Cultivation of Medicinal Plants. We considered that to be the first co-op." "How was it after the war, with your political direction? Did you enter the KSČ?" "Yes, sometime about the beginning of June 1945. The whole are of Bohnice, not just the asylum, had this big meeting, and I was immidiately accepted. Our whole group, those who weren't arrested, got together and worked on the thing together." "What did you expect, you were already working at a pharmacy...? Was that a private pharmacy?" "Yes, private. I imagined it just how it worked out. We reckoned that pharmacies would be nationalised." "What did the owner of the pharmacy say to that? What did he say to your opinions?" "Well, he didn't really complain much. He was a Social Democrat. In that time, the Social Democrats joined the Communist Party. He conformed, he was basically a Communist aswell. It was complicated." "Did you hear about the Ribbentrop-Molotv Pact? That SSSR and Germany had divided up Europe between themselves? How did you feel about that as a Communist?" "Generally like a positive thing is how we saw it. A non-aggression pact and some dividing. We weren't worried somehow, we kind of expected it to crumble somehow." "What did you think of the Communist coup in 1948?" "I was enlisted in national service at the time. We were medics and doctors at a school for officers. I was the only Communist of some fifty people. They made fun of us more than anything. You know... They didn't take us seriously."

“What‘s bad is that people are undisciplined, that everyone thinks that it means that they can do whatever they want, whatever occurs to them, and if they‘re legally educated in any way, then they even try to somehow prosecute those who complain… Basically to place them on trial. And I don‘t think that‘s at all decent.” (question) “What do you mean? I‘m not sure I really understand you now…” “If someone commits something, how should I say it, some depravity, some dirty trick, and he‘s then willing to, instead of admitting to his mistake, to start making a noise and to place charges on those who are calling him to justice.”

"There [in the Gestapo interrogation room at Petschkov palace] they wrung me of information. That was [the potassium cyanide] from the Dříza firm. I told them that the third day or so. That was a small amount, they asked, where did I get the rest. I said: 'Selbstgemacht,' that I had made it myself. So immidiately I got one in the face for lying. They didn't believe me that I had made it myself." "The cyanide? You have to modify potassium cyanide?" "There's still a lot of work to be done, before je get the real thing. You need yellow prussiate of potash, you process that, let it set in a pot, dissolve and clot using essence."