Alice Vaňkátová

“Every year a teacher was written and he wrote to me: 'He has wrong attitude towards the regime, he wears a cross on his neck, provokes both the teachers and the children.' And then he tok me and said: ´Read this.´ There was a date of birth, everything. I said, 'No, I disagree, I won't sign it.' And it was wrong. Because he was supposed to identify a person who simply disagrees with that regime and purge the school of that person. I didn't give up. Even the teacher Laník has a house here opposite to me, who came to me a few years later and said, 'Don't be mad at me, he came to me and threatened that if I had not signed it against you, I'd go out of school too.‘“ (recorded as part of the Stories of Our Neighbors project)

“Then my husband actually wrote to my father and he wrote back. They corresponded for a while, then sent a check for little Víťa, and then agreed to come. He already had another lady. His other wife was also announced that got killed, so the marriage was cancelled, so he got married for the third time and arrived. Kids, you can't imagine what it is like, when a man comes to you who says he is your father. That was 23 years. This is a terrible feeling because you still don't know – is he or not? Who it is, what is it? I somehow didn't connect with him as a daughter. The boys, both Honza and Víťa, they did all right. They were kids, right, they immediately called him grandfather and clung to him. But for me it was a man who suddenly appeared.” (filmed under the project Stories of Our Neighbors)