Miroslav Toms

"Throughout the war, there were shelling alarms. At school, we always had to go hide in the cellar where we played children's games and messed around. When it was over, we'd return to classroom. Often, this was convenient, for instance when the alarm came during examination. For us, a shelling alarm was therefore nothing to take seriously. And then, for the first time, on 14 February, bombs began falling. I still don't know why it happened - whether the Americans dropped the remaining bombs while returning from Dresden... Thanks to my grandpa who lived in Pilsen where there was a lot of shelling I learned that as long as the bombs are banging, things are alright but as soon as they start whistling, it means they are falling on your head. I was in the kitchen with my mum, we were looking out of the window and could hear the whistling. And so we knew, it was falling down on us. We just ducked but stupidly, stayed by the window. If it had exploded, all the window fragments would have hit us. But it didn't."

"This boy was the son of Mr. Šváb who used to be a bigshot. Karel Šváb, his dad, was executed in the Slánský case. This kid was so indoctrinated by communism since his early age that he got the task of preparing political assessments on us prior to graduation. I only learned about that later. It was decided on some Party forum that I would be the only one from my class who wouldn't be allowed to graduate. The head of the examination commission Karel Bílek came over from another institute, and he was the one in charge about what would happen. According to the assessment written by Šváb, I despised the Soviet Union, the Red Army, only went to see American movies, played American jazz on guitar and so on... This comrade Bílek told to the commission in spite of me excelling during the graduation: 'Toms will fail the Czech language and literature exam.' He was a Czech language and literature teacher. My teacher said: 'What do you mean? He was perfect in grammar, perfect in theater...' He responded: 'That is a political matter,' pulling out the assessment. This think then followed me throughout university and towards my employment..."

"As I walked out to Wenceslas Square, there were tanks everywhere and those dummies sat on top of them. I saw that park across the railway station where I used to go on dates, there was a pond with goldfish... Now, tanks everywhere, everything dug up and destroyed. I saw the Museum damaged by the shooting. It was as if it had chickenpox, maybe it is still visible. I walked down to my office. There was a milk bar on the right side - I used to go there for breakfast before going to my firm at Můstek. The people who were passing around were coming to the soldiers, telling them in Russian: 'Do you fools even know where you are?!' One of them replied: 'Germania.' - 'No, we are not Germania!' One of the boys got angry, took down his assault rifle and fired a couple shots. I hadn't talked to him but as I walked around, I could hear the gunshots and see the shop window shatter. I said: 'I won't get myself shot dead by some Siberian primitive, that is not for me.' This was the last drop to my decision to get out of here."