Božena Skálová

"There was a table on the sidewalk in Dolní náměstí, where the pharmacy is now, and you go there to the pedagogical school, Pod Sluncem [Under the Sun]. There were papers on that table, and people signed there that they disagreed. There were trees on the hill, and little kids would sit on them and watch the soldiers ride by. It was horrible."

"They left in '66 or '77. He [the son] was in Prague, studying there, had a girlfriend. Her cousin ran away with the young man. First they were in Austria and from there they came to the States [the United States] to San Francisco. That's how they [the son and his girlfriend] got them too. They went on vacation to Yugoslavia and from Yugoslavia they got to Austria easily. They worked there for a year and a half. First they wrote down that they wanted to go to Canada. And my daughter-in-law - they got married in Austria, they had a wedding there - she had an aunt in Dallas, she was her mother's sister. She came to visit, because she came to America normally legally under the communists. So she came and talked to them. They lived in a guesthouse about twenty kilometers from Vienna. She visited them and said, "Cancel immediately and write down the United States. Canada is a beautiful, beautiful country, but it's hard to get a job there. In the States you have it all easier." So they cancelled it and that's how they stayed in Austria for a year and a half before they got on the waiting list or whatever I would call it."