Milan Čapek

"I remember that next to the house, where I lived, there were something, I am not sure what they called it, something like a town house. It was next to the tenant flats. And I know a certain man, a chemist I think, lived there. A very decent (note: German) family. They had a daughter two years older, about thirteen she was. I do remember they were decent. They got scared the end of war came and the Germans lost so the whole family poisoned themselves. I remember we looked at their coffins being carried out of the house. As I say, they were decent and didn’t hurt anyone, got on with the Czechs well. And on the other side there lived a German man. We called him ‚gauleiter‘ or what kind of a rank he had. He wore a uniform and the exact same moustache as Hitler, including the hairdo. I remember him well. And he used to check if someone had a light on at night and so on. He was the kind of person to let everyone know that he was a German. I don’t recall exactly when they started to produce pioneers, motorcycles... And suddenly I looked out the street of 5 May and saw the bloke riding the motorbike and still wearing the same moustache. So you see decent people who rather poisoned themselves and this kind, who tried to scare us during the war and remained living happily amongst us.”

“It was after revolution in 1989. I was in former company committee. I was there already before revolution shortly. At the last meeting, the committee was supposed to take a position regarding whether or not we support our government. That was after the 17 November. We voted and I was against it. All the directors and other people were there. They were wondering a lot. And two more, a man and a woman, also voted no. So the three of us were against the whole gathering. They immediately started asking me why. I told them: ´Now I don’t wish to comment at all. It is Friday, let’s wait and see what Monday brings.´ And just a little note. On Friday morning the students were attending companies persuading them to make the change happen, so the director, who does not live anymore, he threw them out of the gatehouse. He just did. On Monday, when we came back to work, the changes in government happened at the weekend and we gave up our management... so the director was the first and in the gatehouse he was telling everyone: ,We have to vote for a new government!‘ etc. So he kicked them out on Friday and on Monday he was the first to vote for them.”