Blažena Baborová

“We left at about ten o’clock. We didn’t know anything, we just went. It was a big group, including about six children. Even one little girl who’s parents had told her they were going fishing. She later said she would never go fishing again. We went towards [the border] from Františkovy Lázně. Someone must have told on Dad, because they were already there waiting for us. It wasn’t completely on the border, that was another two or so kilometres away. The informant must have know the route that Dad would take, because they were already waiting for us there. When we were supposed to cross the road, the border guards appeared, lights blazed up: ‘Stop!’ Then they came to us, I don’t know what they were discussing. You could say that they murdered Dad, because we weren’t trying to run. We all stood still, there was the road on one side and a meadow on the other, there was nowhere to run.”

“We were approached by two border guards. I reckon that Dad must have recognised one of them. He used to guide people when [that person] was on duty, he must have arranged with him when the person would be on duty, when Father could guide the people over without harm. They were sure to have this time arranged as well, that we would cross over no problem. When the border guard came up, Father recognised him. According to the interrogation notes (which I don’t have any more, I gave them to my brother), Dad turned to him and said: ‘You...!’ - a nasty word, I won’t repeat it. And he made as if to leap at him, but he didn’t do anything to him, because the report states that Dad had a pistol, but that it had not been used. I don’t know why the border guard shot him. Dad copped it right into the heart, and another bullet into the ankle; he was dead on the spot. I think that the border guard probably shot him because Dad would have been a witness to the fact that he had helped him guide people over. They would have locked him up too. With Dad dead he was in the free, everything was blamed on Anděl.”