Vladimír Veit

"When I left to Austria, I had not yet been filed as a Chartist, who would have absolute certainty that he would be accepted and given asylum. I wanted to travel to Sweden to see Jirka Pallas, but the process took a long time there. I also wanted to go to America or Canada, but my wife and children refused. I already held an emigration paper in my hand, which identified me as a stateless person staying in the territory of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, but I had nowhere to go. So, I called Pavel Kohout in Vienna. He went to the then Austrian Chancellor and the next day I was called from the embassy to come for the papers."

"I do not know what we lived on. For one crown we bought bones, which we boiled, added some vegetables to them and we had soup. Sometimes Jarda's later wife Zorka Růžová brought us something to eat. We didn't even have a plate, so he always had to put it on a piece of plastic bag and we ate it from it. Bread and milk were also delivered to shops in the morning. We caught the right moment when we could steal two bottles and some rolls or buns. We received two crowns for the returned glass, which was our only money."

"When the break came and we applied for a visa to the Czech Republic after the 1989, they treated us at the embassy so arrogantly that you would slap them. One man there also reached for the clerk in the window, pulled him out and slapped him. The next day, the same people acted like totally different people. They told us, 'Please sit here. You'll have it settled in a minute.' So, we sat outside, where such an uncle was moving and asking people,' Is this all right? Are things happening to your satisfaction? I asked him if it could be made faster. He looked at me and said, 'I will definitely do something about it. I'm the ambassador here.'