"The first time he was in Podbořany near Žatec and I know it exactly, because it was some agricultural co-operative or state farm, I don't know, because mother had a sister who had married in Žatec and my aunt, my mom's sister, an economist, worked in the neighboring village. Because she had studied to become a mathematician, she went to teach in Slovakia, from Slovakia she brought over a husband and they worked, she worked as that economist in that agricultural co-operative and next to it there was a prison and there they drove in the prisoners to do agricultural work. Well and I have it in living memory, because I was eleven, that village was about six kilometres distant from Žatec, I don't know, it seemed close to me when me and my cousin went there and back again on bikes. And we rode there like this on the road for a long, long, long time and I remember, that dad was throwing something back and forth with his neighbors like this, they were weeding out in the beetroots, poppies, I don't know what, it was at the beginning of July and they were digging at something there, and dad was jumping until he jumped all the way to the road, and as we rode past, we threw him something good in a little sack. I really cannot talk about it and that is the only thing, which we actually really saw like this."
"On the 21st of August. it was coincidentally Františkovy Lázně, and I taught in that Dobříš. It was those two years after school, that's when I taught in Dobříš. And when I went to the doctor's as you do, and he asks, if I teach in Dobříš? This young doctor.. I am also from Dobříš. And he asks me, what my name is. And yeah, that you taught mine, my sister and younger brother. And I said, well I did teach them... Look here, I am going to Germany in the afternoon, come with me. And so I went to Germany with him and of course we did not return to the house before eight o'clock, and so he had to come there with me. The doctor was young, I was also young, and so everyone stared at me, where I had been, but he worked it out there at the gate. It was ten o'clock, ten o'clock in those Františkovy Lázně, I came to my room, and before I went to shower, unpack, we talked some with my flatmate and that there were tanks under the windows. Where they were hidden, we went there by car, but had never seen them, I cannot understand to this day and the city was full of tanks within an hour."
"We then were leaving at noon, that night father still birthed a horse, still a beautiful filly, because we had four horses, Mrazka, Kraska, Lucka, Cikánka and this ugly evil gelding, I hated that one, I was forbidden even to go there to him, because he bit, kicked, but he gave good animals, good fillies. And so he birthed it still that night and it was noon and we were leaving the farm, lots of people came to say goodbye over those last days, but not the neighbor. And we were leaving and the village was completely, I can totally feel it, see it and sense it, the village was completely dead. There wasn't a person to be seen anywhere, it was noon, not a person, at twelve o'clock we had to leave. There was not a human soul anywhere, all of the gates were closed, not even a dog, not even a single dog at that village barked at us, there simply an atmosphere of melancholy, death, it was horribly heavy, when we were leaving the village. And when we were about to ride out and from behind the last house a man came out, it was that Mr. Řanda, who said please at least come for coffee. And so we went there to have coffee and this man then had crazy problems afterwards, because somebody saw, that our car had stopped there and had snitched on him."
"I remember how, it was a Wednesday and it was already clear that it's that bad with the eviction. It was a Wednesday, father was at the court in Písek, I went to meet him along the way to the train station, he came in with the number two and did not say anything, held me by the hand and only cried. All the way home from the train station he cried. He came home and there it was said, that he was sentenced, has to go to jail and that we have to move out by Friday afternoon. It was insane. Everyone who could from the family helped out, because my dad got, at that court my dad got an address, where we were supposed to move to. And because my uncle, that construction engineer, had a car, he went to that address and there was a border house left behind by the Germans there, which did not have doors, windows, not even a chimney. And that was the address, where we were supposed to move to."
Josefa Eliášová, née Pavelcová, was born on the 16th of February 1945 on a farm in Dolní Nerestce near Mirovice in the Písecko region. Her father, Josef Pavelec, as the largest farmer in the village, refused to join an agricultural co-operative at the start of the 50s, and so was soon hit by communist repression. Regular inspections of the farm by members of State Security (police), gradual seizure of farm machinery and the constant raising of quotas ended in March 1956 with the father‘s imprisonment for multiple months and an order to move out of the village. Their familz moved to the father‘s sister in Příbram. Josef Pavelec was sentenced again in the year 1960, but was shortly thereafter let go with amnesty. Josefa studied at the general education school in Příbram and in the years 1963 – 1967 at the Pedagogical Faculty of Charles University in Prague. She taught mathematics in Dobříš and until her retirement at various elementary schools in Příbram. In the loosened era in the year 1968 her father was rehabilitated, but the family did not manage to return to the farm even after ten years of court proceedings. They experienced the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies while on a health vacation in Františkovy Lázně. That same year in December she got married and had two children with her husband. In the 70s they both developed a passion for yachting and not only built boats, but also managed to sail them around the world as tour guides during totalitarianism. All until the year 1984, when on one trip to Yugoslavia a total of ten people fled from them to America and Australia. Back then only her husband was fired from his job, not her. In November 1989 she took over as school representative after a member of the communist party, but due to a major illness she only remained in this position until December 1990. She later returned to school work and taught mathematics still in her seventies. Trouble about the ownership of the farm continues to this day. At the time of filming in the year 2022 she lived in Příbram.
