Jiří Prokop

"He had a double-needle thread, so he had eight threads, so he just switched it, twisted it once and bit off a thread. So it was really one two - and on three he was already biting off the thread. And he was just explaining, when he got into the army, this was still in the First Republic, he had just enlisted in something like, I think, thirty-six or thirty-seven. Now the first week in the army - he got to the army in Brno at the airport in Slatina. Well, there was a captain there. 'My button's broken off!' And so on. So he says, 'I'll sew it on for you, you can count to three. So he says: 'Two' - 'I've already cut the thread!' Yeah, he was always bragging. He goes, 'Gosh, that was fast! You'll be reporting to me tomorrow.' Well, he took him in, like, he took him in, he just looked after the household, he had some flat in Brno and stuff. And he even had a bar there, he had liquor there, he said, 'Look, you can have a shot, but the one that was before you, I kicked him out, because he was getting drunk and stuff.' Well, so my dad actually, he had a sewing machine there, so he did things that he needed to do, because my grandfather had a business. So he actually had a good war experience like that, he lived through it. Because of that, well."

"Now I got there, there was a big queue. Luckily, I was wearing a cotton watted work coat at the time, like I always did in the winter, and my bag was leather, like a tool bag, so I always looked more like a janitor or something. And so I didn't pay attention to anybody, I went ahead. I get there, there was just a guard, a doorman. And he's like, 'You were here last week, right?' Like this. And so I just realised that there was an opportunity like that, they were just doing some repairs, I'm like, 'Oh yeah, but at the ambassador's maybe we forgot a wrench or something, I'm going to go and have a look.' So he let me in. Now I got in, there was one room. Now, 'Where are you going?'I said, 'To the Ambassador's.' There she was, her name was Schirley at the time. Then there was another room. And only from that room was the third room - and there they already lsensed something was wrong with me. And so I was arguing with them there - and this Shirley heard it and came out. And I was lucky to get to her. Well, now I've told her the story, the whole situation. There's a Cuban family, they have relatives in Florida, they need to get there somehow. And she said, 'Well, if you could get here to me, I could just broker it. But you cannot get through the three rooms of those STBs.'