Vladimír Ptaszek

„Six weeks before the end of my service, a letter came to the barracks. The State Security wanted to make the army aware that I am not a trustworthy person because there are Charter 77 signatories staying in my flat. It was [a guy nicknamed] Londýn [=London] and his wife who were staying in my place. We had agreed on it, someone had to pay rent and the bills even though I was in the army. The flat would otherwise be left alone and empty. So, they assigned a guy to follow me around. It was a fellow serviceman so from time to time, we had a cig and chatted a bit. He said: ‘Sorry, pal, I have to guard you so that you wouldn’t do anything naughty, the counter-espionage ordered me.’ Then I left service and I found out that something was happening with me for the last year and I couldn’t really grasp it. My values changed. Everything was upside down. The important matters were cast aside, seemingly meaningless matters rose to the surface. For example, money stopped being an important goal. I discovered that freedom is more than money and that some other freedom is even more.”

„At about halfway through my army service, the commander of the counter-intelligence, major Fiala, summoned me. Nowadays I only have fond memories of him but then, he requested me to cooperate, he wanted me to snitch on the soldiers. I told him that maybe it would not be a bad idea if he talked to the soldiers himself, that they would tell him what they thought. He told me: “You, Ptaszek, are as sly as a fox, aren’t you.” And I wore glasses, gold rimmed glasses, which he hated. I had a friend who wore a beard, that’s what he hated as well. And that friend had told me some sort of politicla joke. I did not remember what it was but I had laughed. And he [the officer] confronted me about it. Someone had snitched on me. I told him I had no idea about that. It was true. Then he dictated the joke to me and I repeated it after him. He put it in the witness statement and then told me: “Now you sign it.” So I signed it and asked whether oens hould tell the truth. He said that yes. And I told him: ‘In case this ended up at the court, I would have to say that you dictated it to me, that I only repeated after you because I had not remembered it all.’ And he told me again: ‘Ptaszek, you sly fox.’”