Viktor Dub

"I applied again the next year. I got the exit clearance again, but then they invited me for an interview and started convincing me. I had this plan - my brother and I agreed that I would come in the summer and we would go somewhere, like Spain or something. They started talking about collaboration and I knew it was bad. They make you an offer you can't refuse. I walked out of there saying I'd give it a thought; they were fine with that. The moment I left, I knew I had to get out as soon as possible." - "What did they offer you?" - "They wanted me to keep them updated; they would brief me... It wasn't specific. They would use me as a liaison, a collaborator. It was obvious to me as I was leaving that there was no way out. So I immediately started [sorting it out] - it was a problem then, it's not like today, you take your passport and go - I needed a British visa, and it took a month then. I took a train, so I needed German, Benelux and all those visas before I got it sorted. It took two months. Once I had everything, I left."

"We went on holiday to Yugoslavia in the summer of '68. We were allowed to transit via Austria. It was a nasty summer; we went by the seaside but it kept raining and it was cold. My parents didn't have a good time and it cost them a lot of money. We were coming back with the idea of stopping in Austria instead for a few days. We stayed at a hostel near the border the night of 21 August. We found out what was going on in the morning listening to the radio. We drove back to Vienna. The Austrians took care of us. There was a legion of Czechs there at that time. They helped us with accommodation - they were wonderful; they organised a collection of clothes because people were coming back from holidays and didn't have a lot of stuff with them. We stayed there for about a month and my dad decided for us to stay there. Then, his friend from Germany came over and we went to Frankfurt. We stayed there for six months. However, dad found out he was too old to get a job; he was fifty-five. Mum got a job; she worked at the Neckermann department store as an accountant. They decided to go back after six months."

"He was with the mechanised forces, like everyone else; he was a tanker. I don't know exactly where they were but my brother told me they were maybe training in Scotland, and basically they were all over Britain training. They were deployed in 1944 and took part in the cross-channel invasion. The Czechoslovak troops did not advance with the Allies but stayed and operated around Calais and Dunkirk trying to eliminate the fascist nests, which took until the end of the war. They only came back at the very end."