Jana Fiedlerová

“[As for] the penalties of ten thousand crowns, perhaps I could say that I have remained alone with my mom. Uncle Karel had two daughters. And at the time, when retirement allowances were two hundred or one hundred and eighty crowns, ten thousand crowns was an insanely huge amount of money. But since they were told that if they paid those ten thousand crows, they would be released, then obviously the whole large family and all relatives were helping us and we were eventually able to pay the ten thousand crowns. And to pay it for Karel as well. Sisters, grandmas and grandpas, and everybody was giving the money. But it did not help anyway and they did not release them, so it was all for nothing.”

“[Father talked about it:] In Valdice I stayed in the former Carthusian library and there were seventy of us in two– or three-tiered bunk beds. I got the bed on the bottom, close to washrooms and toilets, but it was the worst bed as for cold temperature. There was a window right by the bed which was kept open all the time for ventilation of this large space, which didn’t help anyway. During the cold autumn in 1958 it was so cold at nights that I thought that I would not be able to endure it for one winter, let alone six. Unlike the others, I had one extra blanket, and sometimes I slept in a winter coat, which had been left behind by the German army after their combat with the USSR, and I had a hat on my head, and still I was not able to get warm and my teeth were chattering due to the cold.”