Otakar Ženíšek

"And that Mr. Jiskra then told me in 57', at that time, before he died, that he went to see them at their 'public house'. That's what I called the National committee because they did nothing there. It's where they had celebrations and where 'they' dwelled - the ruling class formed at that time. So he went to them and said: 'Please, take it. I'm already ruined. I don't know where to go anymore.' And he was a strong person—very motor skilled and professional even more. So I used to go to him then when I was like ten years old. And I rode with him in those machines or on the machines. We drove, for example, we cut fodder for the cattle that were under the JZD [Unified agricultural cooperative] Chodov. And then, when it dried up a bit, we went to mow together in the harvest. I always earned 120 crowns in a fortnight. And then I bought trousers and a sweater for school. But it drew me home there. So because I was active and didn't want to go - because the children went across the field that we were mowing with the neighbor, my favorite Jiskra, so they went to bathe, and then they went back in the evening - and we mowed until the dew fell. And when we could no longer cut it, we used to cut grain, and I sat on the binder. So those were my childhood days when I could return to where I was actually from."

"It was a very intense experience for me. I even crashed above Wenceslas Square because, in that thrill, I was scraped by a small... An Avia scraped me, a personal car because it was chaos. Now the policemen didn't know how to act, so they shouted at you, for example: 'What are you doing? I'll kill you!' he shouted through the car window. So don't think there wasn't tension. I used to go there every day, to Wenceslas square. Then we couldn't fit in because the square was full. People couldn't fit there from the neighboring streets, such as Opletal street, Jindřišská street, and Vodička street. So they said that we were going to the Letná plain. So, of course, I was there too, with my family. That was a time of beauty, such ease, one will never forget that until death. Because that was a resurgence. The one that should've happened already if we hadn't been attacked by those who some unfortunately called good. So if they hadn't attacked us, it would have ended in twenty years. But it went on like this for forty-six years.'

"I wanted to mention the notice board, the panel at the bus station, at the roundabout on Chodov. They put up a board - it was a board of shame, that's what they called it. There they wrote how my father was a lousy homesteader, that he was not meeting the quota according to their expectations, so he would hand in his produce, either from the livestock or from the vegetables, to incite people against each other. 'Look, he doesn't take care of you, and he's supposed to take care of you like a homesteader...' and like that. So for that reason, we got into debt because we had to pay extra when my father was already locked up. And it was such a hard time that it's actually difficult to talk about it because the memories are very harsh."