Marcela Smolková

“My husband spent two years in Ukraine as a member of the Slovak assurance brigade and that´s why they wrote him an unfavorable cadre report. He fought against the Russians, detested the Czechs, rebelled against the Uprising. All those things along with more nonsense were written there. Then he met a friend who claimed they needed a lawyer at the Military Administration. My husband told him about his cadre report and how they would always employ him for a month until the cadre report arrived, then they would let him go. The friend had suggested that he went to the Central Committee of the Party and told them that a Military Administration needed him as a lawyer. He did it as he was in need of employment. They inspected the report. My husband had allergies; he abstained from drinking alcohol and eating meat as well. Sheer nonsense was written in the report. Reportedly, my husband staying away from the community was a clear sign of his antipathy towards the socialist system. He stayed away from groups of people because everyone was drinking. They themselves laughed about the absurdity of the things written. They told him it would be erased on the condition that witnesses confirmed it was not true. Eventually, he got into the Military Administration.”

“Czech police officers were going from house to house, doing this malicious thing where they questioned children about their fathers. They showed us a baseball cap, a bicycle, and a briefcase. I told them that my father had a cap such as that one, and the same briefcase as well. Laughing, the Czech officer asked whether he had the same bicycle as well. I told him he didn’t.”