Jan Hlach

“She came home and said: ‘The police boss got sacked again so that they could employ a communist. Soon, they will control everything.‘ And really it was like this. And then the 1948 came and my mum was supposed to question men that returned from the Legion during amnesty, at that time communists granted amnesty. They returned and communists locked them up and mother was supposed to interrogate them. So, she declared, and I remember it well because she declared it several times that she could not be a judge, could not apply law in a lawless state. So, she left the court. However, when she was still working there, it happened that Dr. František Uhlíř, Deputy of Czech National Social Party fled across the borders. They caught him at the borders, a police officer who was against communists caught him, but a new policeman was with him, a State Security officer... or who he was... to make it short, he had to arrest him and Uhlíř got to the court in Písek where he was imprisoned. He had a heart attack in the prison, and they took him to the hospital in Písek where my father was starting the first inpatient department of stomatology in the country. And the police officer still went to see my mum and her subordinate, Dr. Pivnička, that it was necessary to help him. The policeman who arrested him cared about helping him.”

“And at once I was in it, I saw the people running around... it was in the evening, it was dark and, in the villages,... only one light bulb was shining, and they were wearing nylon tracksuits... I had such a feeling as if everyone was wearing tracksuits, the whole country full of those tracksuits and the bad lighting. Dirt everywhere, horrible cars... as a scrapyard... few cars in comparison with Switzerland. I could use high beam lights after a long time because nobody drove here at night. When I returned, most of all I felt pity for my country. What people must have gone through, that nobody believed that anymore, that the whole country dissembled, that people entered the Communist party just because of their children. That nobody was repelled by people who informed on others, that really the national character... I believe that those twenty years did more harm than those twenty years before. Because at that time there were really communists who believed the idea. And there were also people who did not believe it and fought against it somehow.”

“...A Mr. Kubička... a butcher here, we called him ‘uncle‘. He had a butcher's At Florian´s here. Dad used to go hunting with him, he was a big Sokol and every time we went to Zvíkov he moved us. When they imprisoned our parents, we were walking, the three of us, down the road from At Florian´s to the square and my sister spread her arms, he was walking against us and she said ‘uncle!‘ and he stepped aside, said ‘hi‘ and went away. We absolutely hated him for it. When dad came back from prison, he did not talk to him neither. And after some years he met with a relative and he started to tell stories about how many people Kubička smuggled across the borders with help from his acquaintances. Via him and he was also connected with Hasil, King of the Bohemian Forest. He was afraid to meet with us or help us in any way and show his favour for our dad. He was afraid that it would be suspicious that they might torture him and that he would give away the people from the whole group that participated in it.”