Fedor Gabčan

"I had pictures from the Nováky camp, I knew that my father, who had been in the gendarmerie, worked there as a guard, but I did not care for more. They took a picture of mine, with some rabbits bred by a lady who later ended up in Auschwitz. Until that time, I did not care whether he [my father] was a good man or a bad man, whether he hurt people or whether he did not. When I read, later on, that he was very considerate and people there liked him, I had a good feeling about it. I am glad that I can say that he behaved better than other, higher-ranking people."

"In the Czech Press Agency it worked this way: I got a text and I should provide suitable photographs. It was like advertising photography in a way. I photographed all sorts of heroes of socialist work and so on. I had to shoot a portrait of a record-breaking miner at the Trojice (Trinity) mine. I asked where to find him. The other miners cursed him from head to toe but they told me where he should be so I went made his portrait. Some other time, I had to photograph, for example, socialist work plans at the Nová Huť (New Foundry). The employees wondered what work plans and cursed who invented this crap again but told me to photograph whatever I wanted. I went to the foundry where they worked with the molten iron, shot a series of photographs which showed the work effort and that was it. I did not mind it."