Jan Simandl

„ I've be going until the year 1951, when an announcement to go to military service arrived. I was meant to start on October 1, 1951 in Libava, where there were many soldiers then. I had no idea, where I am going... I only learnt there about auxiliary tank battalions, about me being unreliable and serving without guns at the PTPs, as the working folks apparently did not trust us as we could turn our guns against them. And so we got no guns and did our fortnight training ordinal training at the training center; I was saved by my glasses. They put me into heavy constructions. Fourteen days later they put us into a truck and took us to Přerov, beyond Bochoř.“

„They locked them up both, that bloke and the young one, they put them in front of a public trial in Moravské Budějovice and sentenced them. The bloke got two years and the young one just one year, which was not too bad. But a part of the sentence was confiscation of their property to the state. And a ban of staying in Moravské Budějovice region for ten years and fifteen years to stay in the village… those were the properties they inherited from their parents, it was all confiscated and they even chased them out of it, it was impossible to figure out, how is that possible. But that was simply the reality... they moved the family to Liberec and they had to feed farm animals and when the guys served their punishment, they followed them and worked there too.“