Vladimír Sekanina

"I had the first trouble in May 1945. There is the tradition that boys go to cut May poles in other villages. So there were eight of us who went to another village where there was a ball at that time. However, the May pole was being guarded and we saw they had a festival gateway there. It was at night and so we took the gateway and carried it to Měčín and tied it to the water pump opposite the police station. We had no idea there was the Soviet flag. But the next day somebody informed the police and I was charged with the defilement of the Soviet flag."

"I was ordered to do stocktaking for one troop. I had never seen such a mess. I was given all the keys so I opened a locker full of personal materials of the people who had left. I found a testimonial about one of my friends, Tonda Páv. It said, ´He is popular and hard-working, however, he is very intelligent. If he wanted, he could harm the state.´"

"Lieutenant Řehořek ´welcomed´ us there. It is not possible to say what he said as he used just swear words. He said we wouldn't leave alive or we would be working in the mine till we changed our minds and started think positively about the communist state."

"I was working with a drilling machine and I did not like the final work so I was still changing it and suddenly the ceiling fell down on me. It was a layer of 10 centimetres of coal and stones. It pushed me towards the ground so my back was raw. We normally worked wearing just a helmet and trousers – because if there was something to fall down, at first there was some dust and it was possible to recognise it on the back. So I fell down but just my back was raw."