Josef Sorban

“As the youngest, we weren’t the best off, of course, because we were bullied by the older ones. The people there didn’t care for us much, as far as clothing is concerned, we only had old, worn clothes - that’s what they gave us. We had to walk to school, they only showed us the way once. I can’t really say now - I went to have look, it’s about a kilometre away from the children’s home - all I remember is that when school started, the children had snacks during break time, but we didn’t have anything. There was about six of us from the children’s home, we didn’t have anything to eat because we didn’t get any snack, of course, the food there wasn’t much. I remember from the children’s home that our canteen was out on the other side of the yard. The children’s home had a big garden with fruit trees, but those were off limits, of course, we weren’t allowed there. The headmistress, I don’t know her name, allowed me, as the only one, to go into the garden on a Sunday in September, when there was still fruit. That’s what I remember from back then.”

“My dad was released from prison in 1962. I’d like to note that when Mum and I lived in Prague, we received permission to visit him twice. I hadn’t the slightest clue what kind of prisons they had in Czechoslovakia, or that the prison, the facility where he was kept was one of the worst political facilities in Czechoslovakia. I remember we had to go there by train, by bus, and then another two kilometres on foot in the winter, in January, when it was -12 degrees [Celsius - trans.], and they even let us wait outside. It was in Mírov near Mohelnice. That was the first time, and the second time it was a year before his release, in Leopoldov in Slovakia. Neither prison was exactly the best, and I could see that my dad was the worse for it.”