Andělín Kvapil

"But I remember being summoned when my brother-in-law went to the police. My brother-in-law was non-party member and my uncle somehow talked him into it. He completed studies at a mechanical engineering secondary school - graduation, so he went to the police. At that time they called me to the municipal office, it was after '68: 'Didn't you have any problems after '68?' I said, 'Not that I know of,' because officially I didn't have anything. But I was f*ed up. In 1968, I was the leader of a pioneer camp in Germany. We had an exchange of holidaymakers and children between the Waggonbau Görlitz factory and our wagon company. At that time I was in charge of 60 kids - two buses, our troop leaders, and well, we were in Germany. Some time before that, they had been here on holiday from the wagon company, and that was during the Prague Spring. There was a lot of discussion about it then. And I was with those Germans for a week in a cottage on Soláň. I interpreted for them and was their guide. We did various walks - to Karlík and so on. When I went to Germany, I already had my own personal informer. It was an engineer named Knittelman, or something like that. And he was present at every meeting the whole time I was there. He had a broken arm, he was on sick leave, so he was given the job of looking after me. And I didn't know about it, but my colleague - the head of the camp - the German told me. At that time I had 'The Two Thousand Words' with me and they were talking about all kinds of political things. But then I found out that they had searched everything and then I got in trouble."

"The ration cards system ended on the first of June 1953. And I have a memory again. On Saturday, May 30th, I stood as a signalman in front of the guardhouse at Fulnek Castle. Currency reform was announced and the end of food cards. Then I even went from Fulnek to Ostrava as an escort of old money. Well, and I don't know why, the leader of the vehicle - suddenly we drove in Bílovec on the square. There was a queue on the square in front of the savings bank. We got down from the car, we had machine guns, and this old lady came up to us and said, 'You have this to shoot at us, don't you?' We wanted to see what the new money looked like, and suddenly a lady came up to the queue and asked her husband, 'Shall I bring the money?' And he said in front of these people, 'F*ck it, we're going to glue it on the wall at the toilet.'"