Pavel Klener

“He was a neighbour who… Two old German ladies who had nothing in common with Hitler lived above us. And he brought the Vlasov army there and he had them taken away just with a pack of clothes. He took the keys from them and then started to nationalize their things. Well, I guess he was a comrade because I remember that his wife suddenly started wearing a red armband in the house. And my grandmother asked her to excuse her but what she was wearing was. And she told her: ’Don´t you know that I am an ardent communist?”

“The holidays in 1945 came and it was an interesting experience because I spent the first month in Chrast near Chrudim and Chrudim was liberated by the Soviet Army, so I could see there that people were rather afraid of their liberators because when they were hungry, they took a cow and you could not swim in the pond because they had thrown ammunition in to fish. However, I spent the second half of my holidays in Sušice which had been liberated by the Americans. And that is why I could see the differences between the liberation armies. While the Russians looked like they had just left the battlefield, the Americans were wearing ironed uniforms and polished helmets. And when they saw a group of children, they stopped the jeep and offered us chocolate and oranges. So I tasted my first orange ever in Sušice.”

"And I just experienced it, it stuck in my mind when I went with my grandmother to Petřín and there went a procession of captured German soldiers, and when someone tripped or stepped out of the line, they shot him. And before we reached Petřín, there were five dead bodies. These were the first dead bodies I had seen in my life, that people covered with newspapers. And it had a very bad impression on me, because I thought the prisoners should not be shot, and that was totally brutal. "

"In November I was in Brno to defend candidacies, and when we went back, the driver had the radio turned on, we watched the events and wondered who would be the Minister of Health, perhaps they will not leave the Prokopec again. We came to Prague, I went to a clinic, I had some work there, but I was hungry, so I thought, I would write it tomorrow and I packed it, I went home. And here Pavel says: 'Dad, Dr. Brezina had called several times, it's very important, you have to call this number immediately. ' So, I called the number, it was the Government Office, they said the Prime Minister wanted to talk to me, Pitra was the Prime Minister at that time, so I wondered, 'Where exactly do you live, we send a car for you?' In a minute there was a Tatra 613, they took me to the government, the Prime Minister told me to be the Minister of Health. Well, I was just ... For an hour, almost the whole hour, I explained why I couldn't be the Minister of Health. I said, 'Look, I can talk to schoolchildren for an hour or so without papers, but I'm not into political talks. Secondly, when I was doing attestation, I was always afraid of the exam from the health organization, I can't do it at all. I will disgrace you. ' Well, I just gave him all sorts of arguments, and he said, 'You know,' and they really knew about me, so I wondered, 'we got information about you. It's a shame. But we have three more candidates.' So, they took me home, I said, 'Children, you could have your father as the Minister.' We were kidding."

"And otherwise I was going with my friends here in Mala Strana, because the Vltava river was frozen completely, so we could go from Vyšehrad to Letná, despite the weirs, even the weirs got frozen. And when it wasn't a lot of snow there, it was enough to use blades on a pair of normal shoes, it was a kind of skates on a click. So, I went here in Kampa, I put my skates on and I went to the National Theater, or there was always such skating rinks guarded, or when there was a bit of snow removed, otherwise it was impossible to skate. It was possible to walk on the Vltava river and for many years simply, Vltava river was actually freezing my whole childhood. At the time when they started building dams, Slapy was built as first. I think when they were building Slapy that Vltava did not freeze, just here around Kampa... the lane was frozen and in Podoli the port for little boats - they were frozen and we were skating there and then when the Slapy was built, even these two locations did not freeze here. So I used to go skating, I went sledging at Petrin, maybe it is distorted, but I have the idea that those winters were often accompanied with a lot of snow, so we were going to Petrin actually since Martin came on a white horse until February. So, I enjoyed sledding, I enjoyed skating."