Václav Kiršner

„And how did you manage with your mother?" Well she was so tired and overloaded, spitting blood ad the doctor found out she had bronchitis, and a hole in lungs about five times six centimetres, about the size of a small hen egg. So, she went to the sanatorium in Prosečnice. There they cut her ribs at her sides, pulled her into a carapace, her lungs tightened and squeezed. She survived and recovered. Well, you know what she could do, she was retired, so she moved home. But we had… it was already agreed that we would go to the orphanage. Well, but Aunts took us in charge, so they used to come to our house. The horsemen gave us pigs, put two boars in the garden, there they made a shed. So, we cleaned. They always brought a lot of potatoes, we had to rip out the sprouts, put them in the steamer. Cooking potatoes, Jarda, the older brother, the Lamb, was doing it again.”

„When you wanted to transfer something, they always checked you hard. Well, something has always been written. We wrote far less what it cost, such trifles. But they checked us thoroughly. Even though we drove there with our cars. I know someday ... my friend bought a camera case. Look, we were there for an hour ... they were checking us, under the car and everywhere, cameras ... and they were always looking. Finally, after an hour, he said, 'If I had the power, I would shake the camera out.' But he, my friend, said to him, 'Yeah, I already have that at home. I bought a case for it.' That was terrible, with customs officers.”

“We went to see him, we went to him, I remember that exactly, in a year, in 1952 we visited him. My mother and I went to Prague. There our uncle was waiting for us, it was my brother's brother, Romuald Kiršner, who was in England serving in the RAF. So he came to us. And Mrs. Dubová went with us, who was the wife of Jirka Dub, also to visit. And we went to Kartouzy. There we stayed overnight at our uncle´s and the next day we went to Kartouzy for a visit. We came to Jičín and we walked a bit, I do not remember if it was maybe two kilometers or so. I remember it was a solid solid gate. I remember the visit started. My dad was behind the glass wall, his hair cut bold. Uncle said: 'Hey, Jenda passes his regards to you.' And the guy who stood there, the guard, got crazy and screamed: 'Who's Jenda?' - 'Well, that's a brother.' So he calmed down. And then mom asked him, 'Where's your teeth?' And Dad showed he got into a fight. They had to knock everyone out so he didn't have a single tooth. And it was the end of the visit, and we went home when he showed that…" - "So that was the first time you saw your father since the arrest?" - "Yes. And again mother cried. I guess cried with her too when we went to the station. And she was telling Romuald, my uncle, my dad's brother: 'In February after the sentence was established, people were crying that Kirshner should have gotten a rope (got sentenced to death), because he had a brother in England.'

“In Prague we arrived to ... it was a train station, which doesn't exist anymore, I don't even know... Brevnov. And the newpaper ´Rudé právo´, it was already occupied. So we went to Václavák. And down on Wenceslas Square, there was Zátopek under the tank, standing on the street and arguing with the Russians. We passed. When we were in the middle of Wenceslas Square, the Russians started shooting at the Museum, shooting up the Museum. Then we went up to the grocery house. There some guys, you know, set the tank on fire. The auxiliary tanks were broken through the pickaxe and lit up. And as they lit it, so from the bottom the tanks started to run by Václavák and drove us to… And I ran up to the Main Station, upstairs, at the Central Council of Trade Unions. There I walked, it was the Italian street, I crossed it and kept walking to Pankrác. And I went to Zvěstov.”