Ivo Čagánek

"Back then we went abroad as experts. We went to Africa to help start or maintain production. I went to Ghana three times. When I was thirty, when I was forty and then when I retired. The first time we ran a shoe factory there, I ran a small rubber factory. The second time I went to the capital, Accra, we always rotated there after two years and maintained production there. That was called Ghana Rubber Products. The Ghana Rubber Factory, where they made mainly beach sandals between the toes, was kind of a folk shoe. Well, some of those shoemakers' bellows, rubber car mats and things like that. Then, I was in my sixties and a colleague needed a replacement, so I replaced him for a year. But in those years, '77-79, it was still a bad time, but they needed somebody to be there, and the Communists liked dollars, and they were combing us then. When they went through that Polytechna, half my salary went to Polytechna, and I got the rest."

"There was shooting in the streets, bullets were flying. We peeked through a crack in the door to see what was going on and had to crawl into the basement. When the army was there, only then could we come out. We lived in the cellars for about a fortnight. All of us, the whole neighborhood. That was it."