Helena Pražáková

“The father of this Lída Cemprová was an American Czech. He had gained some property in America and he returned here with his family and he bought a homestead. He kept some old American newspapers in the attic, but it was purely by coincidence. They had been probably after him for some time before because he was an American Czech, and they discovered the newspapers there. They arrested him immediately. The following day the radio broadcast announced that Cempr was a traitor of the nation and they had killed him for that. But Lída had to go to school. Her mother did not dare to let her stay at home. I still remember it, Lída was leaning on the desk with her head on her arms and crying. None of the teachers paid attention to her, none of them dared, only teacher Mr. Svoboda sat down to her and he was stroking her hair and saying: ‘I know, Lidunka, I know, Lidunka.’ Those were strange times.”

“Every time there was an election, those communists, those dyed-in-the-wool communists – often they were not even too smart – they would always boast that that Party won the election with 100 percent votes. And although I knew that I would not change anything, and I thought: One day I will try it, when I was at the first election; I will put a blank paper inside and see whether they admit it or not. I tore out an A5 size page from my notebook and I hid it and I went to cast the ballot behind the screen as usual, but instead of the ballot with the list of Communist Party candidates I put the blank paper inside. When I later met some of those communists, I would ask them about the outcome of the election, and he said: ‘Just imagine that, there was some bitch who put a blank paper in there, and she ruined it for us.’ I was secretly laughing. But they did admit it, they admitted that they had not attained one hundred percent of votes, and it was a big shame for the village.”