Josef Römer

"The greatest evil of Communism is that it does not allow people for any natural evolution. That it attempts to squeeze them into a box and control them, so that everyone does what the Communists want - to stand up over people like slaver. "It is evil that they take away your personal freedom and impose on you an idea that they do not believe themselves, and you must want succumb to it like it or not. There is no opportunity for any personal development in any respect, no use at all. Just what they allow you to do.”

"Actually, Charter 77 came out, and the trade union at Ruzyne Airport assembled all the employees who were obliged to condemn it. I was the only one who stood up and told them to read it to us. That we should not judge anything without actually reading it. They said I was one of the rebels, they chased me out, and the next day, the secret police were waiting for me at the entrance to work at Ruzyne. -You think it was related in any way? – I believe there was, as there were all secret policemen amongst those teenagers. Basically, there was a state border. Yes, no doubt it was. They certainly saw it as if transmitted live."

“I was put on the crockery of Zelezny Brod, the first department. I spent a few years there before losing my health. - Did you lose your health? - The hall was unconditioned. There were 40 glass furnaces running where you made liquid glass beads from the glass bars you had to melt. Every furnace was radiating at 2000 °C, there were 40 of them, no air conditioning, only the vents in the roof with bars of course. - So it was unbearable in the summer ... – There were 112 °C in the hall. It was impossible to bear. You sweated so that you were immediately dry. It was all white from salt because you swallowed salt A few people died of heat there too. I only managed to survive but I caught asthma. I began to have difficulty breathing and bronchi issues. Eventually I had to be transferred to another department, to another job."