Pavel Pukyš

“An ex officio counsel came. ‘Well, Mr. Pukyš, here you have a social parasitism offence 7C, 11C, disruption of a five-year plan, and jeopardizing the plant's production plan.' That I jeopardized the production of CKD. I said: 'All right, but I am not a social parasite. I sold music records worth forty thousand crowns.' She: 'To whom did you sell them?' And I could not remember because I knew people by their nicknames. I said: 'Well, to Žid.' She: 'Žid, which Žid?' I said: 'I don´t know his surname.' I mean (I did not remember) Olda Malina´s surname. She: 'So remember his surname. Otherwise, you will be sentenced to three years.' And off she went. She did not care. They did not care about you. And I really remembered it a week before the trial. When you want to remember something, you cannot do it, everyone knows that. I was sitting there and thinking to myself what his surname was or that I would get three years in prison. Then all of sudden (I realized it was) Malina. I and Olda had agreed on it in a pub in Žofín and I think that we also smoked weed and boozed. I was afraid he would have problems and that he would not remember it because we had been drinking when he bought the records, a music amplifier, and other stuff worth forty thousand crowns from me. I told it to my counsel – and he really did remember it. That is why they only gave me a social parasitism offence. He basically covered the year for me. So, they gave me sufficient punishment. I had spent there almost three months and I got three months with a year's probation."

“When I went to the first recruitment in Šumperk, they told me straight away that my brother is a professional soldier. I told them what the hell they´re talking about, that I hate it and won’t go anywhere. ,You must!‘ I said I won´t go anywhere, he stood up and left. I went to the psychiatric and one in Prague helped me so that I didn’t stay in the hall, but then she emigrated. So I actively had to visit the mad house. There I got to know many other people´s fates and probably most of them better folks than outside. Then I was in the department twenty-six, which was the second worse in the republic. I met so many interesting or unhappy fates. I was kind of a life-threatening situation, all monitored by cameras. By mistake there was a guy from Mohelnice, Pagáč, who I knew from outside. I told him not to say he knew me, as we were constantly monitored. When someone disappeared or was dead, no one cared. I was a really rough place. In 1968 there was a director, who put up an American flag and ever since it was all weird.”

“I used to go to a pub, where similar types were gathering. A kind of a good waste. At that time punk was starting there. U Fleků was our base at a certain time. We were walking on tables there. The Bavarians are playing harmonica there today. Nearby there is a pub U Zpěvců behind the National theatre, Kampa was the tops – Klamovka. I was having a party there the whole time and in a half a year they caught me. And before they caught me, I was drinking with the Jew, Olda Morgenstern, in Žofín. We were both drunk and probably also stoned and I told him:,Listen, I need to cover food.‘ I was expecting they´d catch me soon. So I said: ,You bought an apparatus, reel tape recorder, board and some books for about forty thousand.‘ I needed about forty grand a year. ‚Sure, I will give it to you.´”

“At the hostel in Černý Most I played my cassette recorder real loud and on the second day they kicked me out. They moved me to Hrdlořezy, where no one wanted to stay, as there were all drunks. I liked it there. A kind of a rough underground. We were coming in through a window. I woke up at ten and went to the factory. Everyone was just hanging around, the whole lot of the madmen. I came in calm and began to work on something. My buddy was all right, he stopped going through porn magazines and said: ,Pavel, they will soon lock you up with this attendance of yours.‘ I had a three year contract, to pay for the training. They kept saying they don’t want me there, so they transferred me to another group. They said I missed several hours. I said: ,How come? I actually come as usual.‘ There was trouble with time clock. They had about three hundreds. I was combining my work with psychiatrics. Why didn’t I stamp the time clock? I was going to the blacksmiths where they were giving a ten degree beer for free and otherwise it cost seventy halers. I began at ten and had a beer and then just walked away. A week later they were changing colours of the time clock. They were all blue and I had white so I could find it.”