Dagmar Millerová

„I was on my way from Mnichovo Hradiště. In Stražiště, there’s a narrow turn, one cannot see there well so there is a mirror but it was fogged. It was in October and there was a bit of snow on the edges of the road. I changed my gear to two and I drove along a wall, along a house which was there. And out of sudden, a ZIL lorry appeared in front of me. The ZIL lorries had such large hubs on the wheels which stuck out of the car profile and those ripped a hole in my car, from the front bumper to the back door. We had a Škoda 100. An officer got off the lorry and I wanted to call the police. The officer told me not to call anyone, they would be going back in a while, and they drove off. This was in 1986. There was a lady who saw the accident and she called the police. When the police arrived, they told me that I would never see the soldiers again. They wrote it up, the lady confirmed that she had seen it. I drove home and thought that I might wait for them because they would be certainly going back. So I waited on the shoulder of the road. I stopped them and the officer ran out of the car. He asked whether I had reported it to the cops. I said that yes, I had, but that I had not remembered the registration plate number. He begged me to let it be, that he would be deported to the Soviet Union. And that life would not be easy for him then. I agreed. He told me that he lived in Mimoň, introduced himself and promised to bring me anything I would need. This happened at a time when the soldiers started trading with the civilians.“