Jaroslav Lamr

"I was lucky not having to intervene in anything which I would be later held accountable for. Regarding foreign residents, I never witnessed anything worth noticing. It was just routine interest in the citizens of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and in the foreigners. The routine was set: focus on the information. There was nothing adventurous about that, maybe with the exception of going to private appartments. The owners had to be lured away and secured not to jump our backs while we were in someone’s appartment. The owners were typically summoned to the military administration, traffic or foreign police, the doctor’s... Their children were being guarded at school. We had to obtain the appartment keys – at the workplace of the owner or at their children’s school or by summoning them somewhere where they would leave their keys in their coat pockets. We would borrow them, make a print of the shape and then the technicians would make a copy. Some did not have the nerve for it. I remember a guy unable to fit the key into the imprint box. It was often a matter of minutes. He had this clay box and wasn’t able to fit the key in there. It was unnerving. Both the operatives and people from the 6th corps would then go to the appartment and install the tapping device. Sometimes it took a couple hours. They would have to dig into walls, paint it over, dry and iron out. It’s the same old story today – every secret service does it. The only variable is the benefactor. We did it for the communists and the guys today do it for their bosses. Not much had changed."

"It was hard to bear the fact that also the youth was followed by the secret police, including the Scouts. In the Brdy area where I used to live, there were large settlements of the tramp movement. At that time – late 1970s and early 80s – there were efforts to break the movement apart or infiltrate it with our people. I found it hard to bear that missions were organized with the sole goal of destroying Scout settlements where there were totems and places ready for an assembly. The order would arrive: liquidate it. I was personally strongly against it. We argued with the guy who was supposed to carry it out. I was against it, argued with him, but this was an order and he couldn’t have changed it. It was wrong for the secret agents, policemen and militia men to participate in the destruction of the Scout and tramp settlements."