Bedřich Zavadil

“It was after the German capitulation. We were still in England. Local officers were persuading us that if we liked it there we could stay and we would get the citizenship. Guys asked what our jobs would be. Supposedly some manual work until there were available jobs corresponding to our qualifications.”

“What we couldn't get used to was tea served with milk. Tea or coffee with milk is a run-off-the-mill. We got used to it so much that when we came to Prague, we asked cooks for milk both in Karlín and in Ruzyně. They used to exaggerate: ´Well, so buy it then or go back to England.´”

“I was walking through the park and all of a sudden I heard a Russian passing me by. He had a sub-machine gun. As he spotted me he started shouting in German: 'Hände hoch.' ('Hands up.') I said to myself that he was a German. But he thought that I was a German because of my blue uniform. And when I heard him clicking with his sub-machine gun, I ran away into an alleyway. Just in time – the Russian stated shooting at me.”

“They were threatening me that if I didn't come for a medical check-up and for recruitment, then I'd have to pay 100,000 Czech Crowns fine and that the police will take me to the Employment Office. I was checked up by a doctor there, without any stripping up to the waist – in my coat. Simply I had all my papers ready beforehand and I went off.”