Miloš Starý

"I remember it really perfectly, because on that fateful day, November 17, 1989, the jubilee 20th anniversary of the November 17 Run was held, which was founded by former teacher Slávek Veselý in 1969 in honour of the events of November 17, 1939, when they arrested students and took them to concentration camps. Moreover, on that November 17th, comrade director invited various communist high positioned members from the region, from the district, there were various secretaries there. It was gloomy that day, the twilight of the gods. I even have a photo somewhere. We're standing there, I'm starting there, the anthems were playing - and those comrades didn't know that their careers were about to end."

"My first teacher was my dad, a type of teacher just like Igor Hnízdo. When he came to teach in the borderlands after the war, he was not exactly a supporter of the regime established after 1948. He and several young men there organized a kind of armed coup, they had rifles hidden in the school. Someone told them about it and State Security came to the school to investigate. One of the state security officers was sitting by the piano, on which was a bust of Beethoven. He carved a five-pointed star on his lapel with a nail. My sister also has that bust with the star that my father smeared with ink. However, the most important thing was that the investigators told the father that there was no point in denying it and that he would sign either to join the Communist Party or quit his studies. Dad signed the entry to the Communist Party and I think it haunted him his whole life. In addition, he was very unhappy about it in his old age, especially after the revolution, when all those connections became known.