Ing. Eduard Hájek

“My first childhood memory is how I was kidnapped by a drunk Russian soldier after the liberation of Ostrava. He kept saying he wanted a son like that and shooting his pistol into the air. My sister later told me what had happened. The Red Army accommodated its soldiers and officers in people’s homes in Ostrava. Each flat in our house was assigned a soldier or an officer. We were lucky. We were assigned two Russian officers who liked our family. They tried to help us. They brought us food. They even procured beef, which was a miracle. When the drunken soldiers abducted me, my sister saw it happen. The two officers were on their way home, that is, to us. My sister immediately ran out to meet them. They took me away from the soldier and ordered him to be punished.”

“Another such incident happened to me when we enrolled into the Pioneers [a Communist equivalent of Scouting - trans.]. Back then there were these mass events when everyone wanted to join the Pioneers. Their families wanted them there, for one, and they didn’t want to be outsiders, either. I was naive enough to apply as well. That was a mistake because one of my classmates, she was called Dáša – I know her surname perfectly as well – she said that she can’t be in the same organisation as a class enemy. They really denied my application. Because I was a member of Sokol. Dad was a Sokolite through-and-through. He exercised, played amateur theatre, helped get the Sokol gym hall built in Přívoz. He even had a memorial plaque placed there. So the way I saw it, Sokolites were enemies of the state.”