Dana Huňátová

"I had the experience of the very first visit I participated in, the trip of the President to Berlin and Munich. The Minister had several meetings separately and the President had his agenda. And in Munich, the minister had a meeting with his compatriots on his agenda. It was quite a large room, it was packed, maybe 150 people, maybe more. And the first question was from a compatriot, when will they get their property back. And that shocked me completely, because in all the meetings there were completely different topics than property. That was on January 2, 1990. You didn't think like that at all. I was, you could say, thrown off my feet. The Minister was also taken aback by the question. And then the whole debate turned on the question of the return of the Sudeten Germans' property. It was a very difficult negotiation and it indicated future problems, because this issue had been dragging on for years."

"There was a lot of uncertainty among Western politicians. On the one hand, there was great enthusiasm that we had got rid of the communist regime, all those countries. On the other hand, nobody knew what was going to happen next. Who and what we were. To what extent we were riddled with that communist demagoguery. Who among us was a supporter, what we were and what we wanted. Whether it was safe for them to talk to the representatives of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia at all. Of course, East Germany was something special, it didn't really concern them, there the negotiations for reunification started immediately, which we supported from the beginning. But the three of us who were left, plus Bulgaria, Romania, which was even more distant and even more obscure to the West, so it was a period of a bit of a straddling of the West. Because of course the easiest thing was sort of economic aid and support, but the political involvement, and possibly the involvement in the security structures, that was a much more complicated question. We started immediately to negotiate the departure of the Soviet troops, so the second step and the goal of our political representation was the abolition of the Warsaw Pact, but that was already causing great concern in the West. Some politicians wanted to balance the abolition of the Warsaw Pact with the dissolution of NATO. Which, of course, was not logical, because the two pacts were created for different reasons. The reasons why NATO was created, to defend freedom and democracy, have not gone away, so there was not that logical reason for somehow abolishing the pact."

"Well, it wasn't friendly to us, by any means. I didn't dare go to the dining room alone for months, that was clear. It was such a terribly interesting situation, though I can't quite describe it, because it was such a hustle and bustle and such a workload and commitment that I can't remember the details. Just as we came in through the main entrance into the anteroom of the minister's office, the deputy ministers and the directors of the trade unions were there, and they made no pretence of welcoming anyone. The atmosphere there was really so unpleasant, perhaps even hostile, those first days. Because of course they turned up their noses at the newcomers, they considered themselves professionals and we were some kind of... And especially towards the minister, that he was some kind of a stoker, and that he was going to command them. The other considerations that were there were what they should do to keep their positions. How to adapt to that. That, in retrospect, those corridors, which are known for - it has a name: 'corridor diplomacy' - those Černín corridors are known for the fact that that's where a lot of the important decisions, or at least negotiations, actually take place, so it must have been bubbling and boiling. I would have loved to have heard or seen some of that, because it must have been incredibly exciting for the staff there."

"I wasn't there for the interrogation, but we experienced when they came to pick up my husband, the search was pretty crazy. At exactly 6am they broke into the flat, from then on we were not allowed to talk. It was the first day of school and we weren't allowed to talk to the kids. It was absolutely crazy! My daughter got up - I wasn't allowed to wake her up - so they went to wake the kids up, which was horrible. There was one woman and three guys. One of the guys went with my daughter to the toilet to watch her, she wasn't allowed to close, and I wasn't allowed to speak to her at all - not a word. It was just something crazy. And the only thing I managed to do, so it was more of a joke, as they were going into that apartment, I told them they had to take off their shoes. I said the kids had allergies and they had to take their shoes off, and they did take their shoes off, so they were walking around in socks. But then it pissed one of them off because they still went to the basement, and they kicked one neighbour´s basement door, who of course had nothing to do with it. So they searched the apartment thoroughly, the kids had to get dressed, go to school, completely freaked out. My son had a great idea - I say, we weren't allowed to talk to him - he went to my colleague on the way to school and told her that we were being searched. That got the message out, and then she kept calling other places. They left about noon, took what they thought was appropriate. Mostly they were interested in books, it was a car full of books. They took my husband away and that's all I knew."