Jaroslav Javorský

"Since she couldn't leave the Czech Republic directly, no matter how, we planned it, or rather I planned it so that it could go through Bulgaria. I spent months gathering documents on how best to do it, and I came up with a plan based on the knowledge I had at the time or could acquire, that I would fly to Turkey on a Czechoslovak passport. In Turkey I would have a passport in another name, a false one, with which I would go to Bulgaria. And with the fake passports, which will more or less visually match a little, Anna and the child will be able to cross back to Turkey with me. Well, and then it was only - because Turkey at that time, of course, did not extradite back - and it was possible to contact the German embassy directly. So it was arranged there in advance that in case we got there, that there would be a possibility for me and for her to be transported back to Germany."

"Well, when I was coming to the bus, one little sidelight: we were trained, of course, as political prisoners [mukls – trans.], to - before entering any room – to take off our hat and to wipe our feet. Because it was known that the exchange was going to be broadcast, Vláďa Škutina, who was a very good friend of our family from Switzerland, flew to Heilbronn and they all sat at home in front of the television and watched, because nobody knew - not even the broadcaster knew - who was who. They just put it on straight, they weren't informed, so sometimes there are nonsense lines. The first person who recognized me was Škutina - and it was because I took my hat off and wiped my feet. Because he says, 'Look, it's him, it's him, the political prisoner, he's wiping his feet and taking his hat off!' So that's just a sidelight on my getting on that bus." - "And did you take off that 'freedom hat' they gave you so it wouldn't be obvious that you were completely...?" - "Yes" - "What authorities took you over there? The Americans?" - "Actually there was just an escort in the form of American gunners and a driver and then a staff doctor in some officer's rank came in, just a guy from the American army. He asked everybody what he could give us or if we felt okay, if we needed any medical examination. And then, to the roar of the crowd that was actually greeting us on the other side, we left in that double row for the airport."

"In the morning, as I was saying, I met Sharansky at the exchange post in the bathroom and then they took us downstairs for breakfast. They herded us into Barkas car, and in that Barkas we basically didn't even have handcuffs anymore, because we had arrived the day before in handcuffs, both of us. They took the handcuffs off when we were inside the villa. We were more or less allowed to sit next to each other, so the whole time we were driving, one car in front of us, one car behind us, us in this Barkas in the middle, and we were driving towards Berlin. We knew we were going back the same way, but we didn't know where. It wasn't until we finally saw the signs that said it was taking us to Potsdam, which was on the side of the Glienicke Bridge where East Berlin is. They stopped there with this Barkas, came out and reported that they were handing us over to another bunch there. Well, and we could see in front of us - about forty meters away from us - the Glienicke Bridge, literally blocked up with cars from the CIA, maybe even from the Stasi, they had some... There were a lot of people there, chaotic, in a few moments - the moments were different, of course, from how one saw it at that moment, because we were impatient, everything seemed it took an awfully long time - before someone came, before someone told us what was going to happen, how it was going to happen. So the first one who came was the East German lawyer, Mr. Vogel. He came to inform us that we would be released, but that it would take some time. That he would gradually inform us about what would happen, when it would happen, how it would happen."

"Well, that first hunger strike was such a partial failure for the reason that after thirty days, when I had what they call a high concentration of that acetone in my blood, which was three crosses, it's measured by crosses, so three crosses was a signal to them that they had to take me to the hospital. An escort, great precautions, and besides, I had an old criminal going with me who, when he found out I was on hunger strike, well they were the kind of people who just took it as a sport. He says: 'When I found out that you were on hunger strike, I went on hunger strike too, because I thought it would be fun with you and that we'd see Prague.' He was an older, experienced prisoner, his name was Jarda Vinč. Well, he came with me. I don't know if he was also in a way... at least I thought so, until we arrived in Prague at Pankrác. Well, he immediately took out a cigarette from somewhere where he had [them] hidden, and in that hospital room he started to smoke. So we had a little quarrel. After a while, the head of the department, some Captain Suda, whom I mentioned earlier, came there. And he started threatening, and then the truncheon came into play. First this Jarda, then me, and he literally kicked us both into solitary confinement. By then we were dressed in those - at that time famous blue and white striped gowns, they were military uniforms for the hospital. And in that solitary confinement, where he locked me up, he had the water turned off and left me there for three days without water. You perhaps can’t imagine - three days without water is not such a problem for a normally healthy person, but when you are on a hunger strike after thirty days, your mouth is completely dry, you can smell acetone from you - from any pore -, so three days without water is an attempted murder."

"They put me in the so-called glass pressing plant - of Železný Brod glass - which actually had about forty furnaces for the production of decorative pearls, that is, these are actually the beads from necklaces, which are then somehow modified and our women beautify themselves with them. When they told me that I was going to Železný Brod glass factory, those around me who didn't have to go there and went somewhere else, they said, 'Well, they gave you a hard time.' That phrase actually, that 'they gave you a hard time', that's what was ringing in my ears until I first came on that first shift. That was sometime... I started at six o'clock in the morning, so you could say it was still almost dark outside. We'd come in there or they'd bring us from that house to that work site, all that morning shift, well, and they'd put us in there. The shift before us was still finishing up, that is, I could see the faces of the people there, I could see the furnaces glowing and the hustle that was there. So it flashed through my mind, I have to admit, that this is probably what Dante's Inferno looked like in my imagination."

"The Higher Military Court, as well as the prosecutor, always met at Pankrác, so I was taken from Ruzyně to Pankrác for that trial, the public was excluded. The only time they let the public in was when they let people in who had been vetted somehow, that is, my uncles, my cousin and Anička’s brother. So there were about ten people who were then allowed to hear the verdict that the President of the Senate gave - and it was very brief. So he read it in its entirety, of course, but the important thing was that I was guilty or found guilty on all counts of the indictment - to loss of military rank, to loss of property, and to imprisonment for a term of thirteen years, with being assigned to the so-called third correctional group, which meant at that time the only prison in the Czech Republic [Czechoslovakia] - Valdice."

"I, of course, at the age of twenty-one or two had no idea what such an apparatus as military counter-intelligence was capable of... or what could realistically be accomplished. But again, I'll take it retrospectively. I read in those classified files that before I started going abroad, the chief of the third division of that military counter-intelligence called in my supervisor and told him that he hoped he was vouching for me. To reemphasize to me that they wouldn't take any crap if... In other words, he simply said afterwards that they were behind me 100 percent, that everything I needed they would make available to me. As long as I'm loyal. And especially that - while I'm there with my parents- I won’t think about, as they say, about taking flight. So in case I would perhaps think about it, I'm sure some car accident... And now he said the car number, HN19, that was the number of our NSU Prinz that we got there as a family to use when my dad was playing for Neckarsulm, for the car company. So it was clear they had it mapped out. And he just said, 'Anything can happen. Just a coincidence. You can't control that. So I hope you'll be a good boy and come back to us with whole family. And then we'll see what happens.' So that was the main reason why... I was like, 'I would have stayed there immediately.' But I was just scared."