"When we arrived [in Teplice], there was a cannon, armoured personnel carriers and cars, probably of officers, around the house. Interestingly, we were given the keys to the apartment, and when we entered it, all the furniture was there. It was as tidy as if the people had left recently. There were also various personal things, photographs, and we found out that a young German officer and his wife were living there. I don't remember if there were any children there. In any case, he was an officer who had fled from the Red Army before the eviction took place. My father was so honest that he reported it immediately. [...] A truck came, and they took all the furniture out. My dad gave them everything that was there. There was a beautiful stamp collection, and Dad gave that to them too. There were bookcases full of picture books, that went away too."
Adolf Absolon (born 14 July 1937 in Prague) is a leading Czech illustrator and author of stamp designs. In 1952-1956 he studied at the secondary industrial school of geology. He continued his studies in geology at the Faculty of Science of Charles University, graduating in 1962. Until 1988 he worked as a geologist and, in addition to his work as a geologist, he was intensively engaged in illustrating science books. He submitted his illustrations to the Association of Czech Visual Artists and was accepted on 3 June 1988. In 1989, he began working as a freelance artist. His first two stamp designs were published in 1995, and by the end of 2022 he had designed 35 commemorative stamps. In 2020 he became a member of the Association of Czech Graphic Designers Hollar. At the time of recording in 2022, in his free work he was still mainly engaged in oil painting of small-format landscapes inspired by the old Dutch masters.
