Irena Meixnerová

“At a meeting, where they promoted the collectivization, Mr. Kaňok, the chairman of [the local committee of] the Communist Party, began to threaten them, that if they act like this and will reject the collectivization, they could get to Siberia. Mr. Kohut stood up and said: ‘Why should you send them to Siberia, to that paradise? Send them rather to America to those capitalists, who will exploit them.’ But this event influenced the dossier written on me, when I was applying to the university. It was written there, that I am a ‘daugter of kulak’, who was in America, and so on. There was also written that I am a ‘fanatical Catholic’.”

“We were sleeping and suddenly I heard some bustle outside. I glanced from the window: people were running around. I didn’t have telephone, yet, so I went out to the hall and there, I learned from people, what had happened. I packed my daughter and my colleague, who also lives here, told me: ‘We must go to a shop. I have nothing at home.’ With each other, we sat with our children, because people were buying in flour and other durable food. They knew from the war, that during the war, there was nothing to eat. So we went to the shop, too. We were afraid that it was a beginning of a war because tanks were there. I didn’t go out with my little daughter, she was only one year and a half. Nor into the park, just around our house, because I was afraid; I didn’t want to be near to some incident.”

“My mother came with me to a small village Vojkovice, where she supposed, we could live in peace. Besides me, she had also two older sons, which were somewhere near Cieszyn at some farmer’s. My mother wanted to take me with her to pick up the brothers, but Kohut’s daughter persuaded her to let me there as it was useless. She was to return in the evening, so my mother left. During the leave-taking – as Kohut’s family told me at the end of the war – my mother asked them, or begged them, for the case that if something happens, not to... give me… to anybody else...”

“I worked in the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement [ROH] and all the time, I was a treasurer. Once the chairman and the vice-chairman were absent, I was at the third position in ROH. Bonuses were signed up and they were very reluctant because we [non-communists] mustn’t have known about it. Commonly it was signed by the chairman or the vice-chairman of ROH – communists, so they agreed with it. But when I was signing it up, it was unpleasant for the man, [who gave it to me for signing up]. He didn’t want me to read it: ‘Sign it quickly!’ – ‘I will read it, surely I won’t sign something that I haven’t read.’ And I asked him: ‘Explain to me what such and such does. I’m sorry about it.’ Because I knew that he did nothing but he was a member of the Communist Party. He replied: ‘He has such a bonus because he pays a membership fee to the Communist Party! How could he otherwise pay it?!’ – ‘What? I thought, that you are to evaluate the work here!’ – ‘So will you sign it or not?! Who is after you?’ He didn’t discuss with me. So I signed it. Yes, I was cowardly. If I didn’t sign it, somebody else would do it.”