Boris Hlaváček

"And for those PTP people, that's a whole other story. Unfortunately, young people today don't go to war and it's a shame. They are sponges, they are not men. We had to stand guard several times in front of a complete idiot, there was nothing we could do about it. That's the kind of humility you learn, that you have to stand guard in front of a total moron, someone who might have a major's degree but can't read or write much. But he is in the communist party. I will tell you about one incident from the war. There are hundreds of such incidents, especially from these PTP people. One guy said he had a date one night and didn't have an iron. His friend said to him: 'Then I'll iron your pants like never before in your life!' He sat on a seventeen-ton diesel steam roller, the boy took off his pants, put them on the boards, his friend climbed on the steam roller and ran over his pants. And just when he was halfway through those pants, he got tired, of course. Coincidence, we saw two tudors arrive and two commanders in them, who tried to fight us PTP people and always paid for it. We had to report, we stood guard, and the one with the pants under the steam roller stood there in red shorts and saluted. First they yelled at the soldier where his pants were, and when they saw that they were under the steam roller, they laughed themselves."

"My friend's name was Ivan Mikšovič. He was a scout who was locked up during communis, he got, I think, 11 years and served eight. Then they let him go and turned him into a beggar. When he left prison, my father had to bring him clothes so that he could leave the prison at all. He was destitute. Originally he was a rich guy, a poet and an editor. And then we were building a garage together and I said to him once when he came back from that prison: 'Ivan, how do you feel now that you have nothing at all?' And he told me something I will remember for the rest of my life. He said: 'Boris, I am the happiest man in the world, no one beats me unconscious, I am not hungry, I am not thirsty, I do not have to stand in front of every Bolshevik primitive and report to him - Mr. Commander, prisoner number etc.' That's modesty, that person had nothing, then he lived with us, temporarily, then with his sister. They both lived in the basement. And he was happy that no one was cutting him."