Václav Zitta

“And I got a chance, I went to the Job Club at Hussite in Žižkov, where I learned the basics on a computer, and I was looking for a job. They helped me a lot, especially Martina Hrdlickova. All of a sudden Mrs. Eva Dudová, who leads the Transition Station in Žižkov, an owner of a shop at Chelčického 17, was looking for a homeless person to sell things at the shop. I heard that and I said I would be interested. She said she would try me out. She set up a kiosk and tried to see if I would run away with money or something. She was watching me from afar, finding me to be honest, so she gave me the chance, and I was the first seller at the Transition Station, which she opened on April 8, 2017. But I already had a job. And there was such a special friendship between the young ones and me. I got the keys to everything, from the warehouse, from the cash register. And I wouldn't have thought to touch the cash desk, there were thirty, forty thousand, I could pick it up and go somewhere, as I did before. I was writing everything, serving customers. I got a chance and I got the confidence I needed from someone. At least one person to trust me. I grabbed it and I think I'm on a happier planet now.”

Interviewer: "What does it mean for a man to get to jail like this that time due to a calculator?" V. Z: “You come to jail, you always have an idea in your head, you think about family and so on. Now you see the old ones who already have served some time. You talk in the room, learn other things, and unfortunately I learned them.” Interviewer: "What have you learned?" V. Z.: “Thieve tricks. How to open locks and stuff. And then it all went downhill with me.”

“That was four years back. I sat at the Central Station, she vegetated there, slept there with the homeless, just where taxi drivers were parked, and slept under the wall there. I was sitting on a bench, chatting with people - and she started hitting a guy. He wanted to steal her purse, a junkie. So she just beat him. So I looked at her and sayïd: 'Dude, I want this girl!' She came to me and said, 'What is stopping you?' And we have been together ever since.”