Zuzana Brejcha

"It was 10:30 in the evening. I was reading a book and the light above my bed was on. Someone hadn't liked that. About twenty tanks were parked at Palackého náměstí, guarding the bridge in case there was a counter-revolution. Most likely, someone was bothered by the light in the fourth floor. Nobody had ever given an explanation. They began shooting, first to the children's room and then into the whole apartment. They targeted specifically our three windows. They riddled the apartment with bullets and we had spent the night on the other side in the hallway next to the toilet. Then we spent three days in Žižkov in the film archive. When we returned, we found holes in all the walls, plaster all over, curtains burned down, windows smashed, paintings nailed to walls by the bullets. My bed got 27 hits."

"I realized what was his sacrifice while he was at his deathbed in a hospital. We knew he was dying and not going to make it past the weekend. We stood around his bed and instead of saying important things, we were talking rubbish. I was just complaining about what I had been doing - my director etc. My dad gave me a look and said: 'Yeah, right, but you're making movies.' And then I realized, he made a great sacrifice for us. We were always provided for and were doing well. We never heard him say that he made sacrifices for us. He would do anything." - "Did all in your family handle the emigration well?" - "Handle the emigration... If I were to be strict, I'd say I hadn't handle it well myself. It consists of two things. The first one is learning the language, getting used to the environment and integrating in society. The second one is that inner feeling. Once a refugee, always a refugee. I know different people feel it differently. For instance, when I was given money by the Austrian Chancellery to make a movie which I shot in Slovakia, I was wondering why was I getting Austrian money to do that. In spite of being Austrian - and feeling increasingly so - I still feel that I'm a refugee."

"What was shocking is that I returned into pretty much the same thing. Nothing had changed there in the meanwhile. Those shop windows with a few meat tins and doves of peace, Brezhnev and Lenin hanging above it as 1 May decoration. All stayed the same, nothing had changed, and this made an impression on me. Few people realize that Russians were present in Austria up until 1955. Vienna was divided into four pieces, and so was the country. In 1968, however, there was normal capitalism. It was thirteen years after the last Russians had left but the Austrians made good work here in the meanwhile. In 1982, there was normal life, as it is today."

"It doesn't make any sense today but we had been sitting at home. My dad would go to work, studying chemical formulas of paints and varnishes in the evenings. He had a pile of papers that he had to learn by heart. We stayed at home, went out only to buy things and listened to Austrian Radio - the 3rd station. They used to play modern songs all day long. Those were the same things we used to previously listen to in Radio Free Europe but in better quality. Instead of starting a course of sorts, I hadn't been going anywhere. My brother would at least go to the Philips factory. I sat at home. Then sometime in the spring, dad said he'd enroll us in a school. I was fifteen, and so had no obligation to study further. But dad found a grammar school nearby. We lived around the 18th district and had a normal apartment. My dad found a school nearby. One day, we went there to enroll. I still hadn't spoken German. It was in the spring and I recall going to the principal's office and dad talking to her there. I don't know what they were telling each other. Then dad said she asked him whether I spoke German and he said I didn't. She replied that it would be a problem and how should it be resolved. He promised her that I'd learn German very quickly."

"Once a refugee - always a refugee. I was wondering how to explain it because our emigration was in fact a luxurious one. Our dad always provided for us, we never had financial issues even if dad left a comfortable life behind. We had acquaintances who produced movies, my dad worked alongside Werich, Trnka, Karel Zeman and similar people. Then we escaped here and started from zero. It sounds superficial but fact is, we were suddenly foreigners who hadn't known whether to turn left or right after leaving their house. The loss is terrible. Perhaps to some people it didn't matter but I think it is a wound that tends to stay open. The fact that I still recall our old phone number in Prague, that is a fragment of my original identity."