PhDr. Bohumír Roedl

“Imagine there were forest exchanges, does it ring a bell? Well, that was in the second half of the 1970s, when I was working in the preservation department, I was in Prague, I had friends there. That's how we always found out - but don't ask me how, there were no mobile phones, I don't know, it was a rumor - that, for example, records were sold in a forest somewhere outside Prague. You got there by tram, you walked a little way and there were, let's say, seventy to eighty people who had laid out blankets or celts, and they were selling records. Procol Harum, the Stones, Trox, just strangers here. How they got to them, somehow they got to them. Well, you looked at it and simply bought a record in the forest. I still have a few of them, such forest records.'

"It kind of happened that we always had to go - once every two years we had to go for a comprehensive evaluation at the ideological department of the OV KSČ. There they said, ‘Comrade, you should join that party.’ And I said, ‘Comrade, I don’t feel up to it yet, you know?’ I was 31, 32, 33. ‘I’m not mature enough yet.’ So I made excuses and they said: 'Comrade, anyone could say that,' that kind of talk. I remember once they called me out of the blue. I don't know, I told them no, it doesn't matter. And that's where my experience with State Security was interesting. They knew everything. When I lived in that Beroun, as I told, with my first lady, she met some people in the library and she said: 'Hey, Bob, they're kind of weird, kind of religious. They have such strange opinions. And they told us to go to see them in Nižbor for a visit.' So we went to Nižbor and I found out that they were Jehovah's Witnesses. And I discussed with them at that time. I was interested in the Bible and religion, I am not religious. And so I discussed with them, we met about two or three times. Dot. I forgot it. And in 1985 he came to me, and you will probably know him too, definitely from the story of Vladi Drápal, a secret policeman called Havelka came to see me. And he said, 'Look, we know that you had connections with the Jehovaists. And you know, we don't want anything from you, but we have them here too, and it would be perfect if you started associating with them again, the Jahvists, and simply told us what their views were, if they were planning something, who everything is there and so on.'And I told him: 'But Mr. Havelka, you can't ask me to do that, I can't move among such idiots, it's impossible! They're fanatics, aren't they!' And that was exactly the year 1985, when they made a hard offer to me and said: 'You will join the Communist Party.' so it will probably cost you a job.'' Well, and since dad was still working on the railway back then, I was insured that if I was fired, I would go work on the railway in some technical or archival position. In order not to join that party, I did everything possible."