Jiří Beran

"I finished my representation and made contact with the Kneissl company in Austria, which produced skis. For two years, I was a semi-professional, racing long runs around the world, such as the Vasaloppet, Marcialonga, König Ludwig Lauf and so on. For two years I was still under the Dukla [Liberec] banner, but I was representing the Austrian company Kneissl." - "Did you have any contract that they sponsored you?"- "It wouldn't have been possible without them putting money into it. But I still had to have a contract signed with Pragosport, which allowed people to go out. There were hockey players, footballers or singers out through it. I could go out and I was obliged to give them twenty-five percent of the earnings or the sponsorship donation."

"I see it like today. Thursday before dinner - we were still studying a bit, reading. A Moskvich stopped there, they pulled us out of the room and we never went back. I was wearing slippers or a raincoat, sweatpants, a T-shirt, nobody cared. We spent the night at the police station in Trutnov. The next day, sometime after lunch, they took us to Hradec Kralové to the detention centre. It was Friday. I was in the cell with a man named Novák, who informed me how things were in the prison. It was probably the ninth time he had been there, he was an experienced criminal. 'You'll be here until Monday,' he said. It was lucky that the prosecutor was there on Saturday. He called us in and asked us if we agreed or wanted to change something about the statement we had given in Trutnov. I said, 'No.' He said, 'All right.' On Saturday afternoon we were released. We were in T-shirts, sweatpants, cloths, no money, no papers, and in Hradec they kick you out on the street. We hitchhiked to Plotiště, the boys went to Trutnov, and I hitchhiked to Česká Skalice. It was dark, nobody took me, so I walked all the way to Police nad Metuji. I could go on for a long time..."