Věra Fabiánová

“Then my dad was arrested, in 1949, and they let us live in that apartment for about three years. So, we lived there for about seven or eight years. Well, and then they moved us out right away, saying we had a little house in Vavřineč, so we should go back there. And now dad was locked up, and now, once a week, when we were still in Mělník, mom had to take clean shirt and undershorts and take it to dad to Litoměřice. But she never saw him. She did not see him for a year. Only the clothes and she brought them home torn and bloody. That is what the communists did, they used to beat them up like that. And they always wanted them to confess to something. And the trial was a year later. The, what do you call it... the People's Court. In Litvínov, and there were all the bad people there, shouting, you know... how they actually... they wanted us not to go to Russia, to go to England, did not they. They actually fought to make us better off... And then he worked in the uranium mines for Russia for eleven years..."

“And then it happened that Zlata Pechová did not send us any letters any more, they imprisoned dad in that year, 1949. He was in a custody for a year. It was in Litoměřice. Mom used to visit him, there was not much clothes [to wash] and she always brought a torn shirt with blood stains, I remember that. And she always cried and always [said]: where do I get the clothes? As clothes were not generally available at that time. And so this lasted for a year. Then, dad was arrested and some other gentlemen, too, Mr. Holman and all those from Řepín, but, mainly, dad's friend Mr. Jindřich who manufactured grist grinders and Mr. Hořejší of Mlazice who made baby prams, he was sentenced to death. He was hung. He did nothing, believe me. And dad got a life sentence but he appealed so he got twenty five years of hard prison. So mom only saw him at that court, as it was the people's court or how they called it at that time and mom cried, you know, it was cruel!”

"One day, dad brought an English pilot to our house. And he said, Věruška, an uncle came to visit us but you must not tell it to anyone. And so mom cut slices of homemade bread, spread lard on them, and I remember it, how I always looked at her. And then dad and Mr. Martinovský, who worked in that forest, in Řepín and such, he worked as a forester in Řepín. I do not know how they made each other understood, [probably] through Zlata Pechová who used to help dad with how they had the transceiver. Dad had a transceiver and they transmitted news to England, simply. So I remember of all that only how dad told us how they hid him in Repin: Mr. Tomiga, Father Tomiga, Mr. Holman and other gentlemen whose names I do not remember. Maybe I could remember but then, it would be just from stories. And then they took him to that sugar refinery and he helped them too and they took him further on and they helped him this way..."