Jitka Jachninová

"President Havel was then a young man serving his military service at the airport in České Budějovice. He was already predisposed to literature. There was an artistic competition at the army at that time. There was singing, dancing, theatre. He came up with the idea of playing theatre at the airport. He chose a group and they were rehearsing the play. My husband was a culture worker at that time who was in charge of leisure time art activities, also military ones, because there were various festivals and competitions. He knew there was a theatre being performed, they knew that my husband was able to advise them, so he started going to that airport. Well, one day, they also came to us because we had almost the first television set in the house, about four young men and among them a certain Václav Havel, I don't know whether he had a rank or not. They were sitting on the floor, watching TV, and it was awfully nice. I like, I really like to remember it. We were young, everything was going well, they got tea and we had a good time."

"My uncle Dr. Jan Šanda was a priest. As a young man, a chaplain, he lived and worked in Rábí, which is the Pilsen region, and later he came to Bernartice. By then he was already a parish priest. He was a very competent man who wrote plays, books and above all he was a very patriotic and selfless man. It was after the assassination of Heydrich, and near Bernartice a hidden radio was overheard. The Germans immediately started moving and went to exterminate Bernartice. However, my uncle was warned and immediately called all the villagers together, gathered them in the church, locked it and didn't let anyone in, which was a touchy matter. Anyway, the Germans are great Catholics, so they left without any conflict or punishment of the villagers. However, my uncle paid for it by his stay in Dachau, from where, surprisingly, he returned to Bernartice safe and sound. He was promoted and appointed a canon in České Budějovice."