Josef Karafiát

"Well, I remember it very well. I played in the band Domácí kapela. It was such a pretty good alternative project of Honza Brabec, and it was the original drummer of the Plastics. And in '97, President Havel asked them if they would play at the Castle. And they got together and did a concert there, which was great at the time. Well, after that concert, they decided that they would still play, so Honza Brabec, the friend, called me if I wouldn't go with them as their guest. So, there were posters, there were names, and then there was, Karafiát J.H.' Their guest. So, they didn't take me just then. I guess they wanted a registration, I don't know. So like this, well.”

"People couldn't even leave, even to Austria, they just needed certain permission, of course, those were the exit clauses. That's what the police issued. And the main thing was to get a foreign exchange in the bank, which meant that they gave you hundred German marks for a fortnight's stay in the West, for example. Which was like one night, yeah, so it was important to get that foreign exchange vow for the little money anyway. So here in Dejvice there was a young lady in the bank and she got bribed. So, for five hundred crowns she gave us the foreign exchange vow. There were more of us guys who just arranged it like that. And so I got a foreign exchange, yes, so I applied for an exit clause. And when you weren't exactly a chartist - like me, my bunch, we weren't very chartist, we were so hidden that they didn't know about us - so he got the foreigner. Yeah. So then it was done by going after the money changers and grinding the currencies. So as we drove… I drove in low shoes, in the sole, about a thousand marks, yeah, it was a lot of money. Well, we took the train to Frankfurt or somewhere and then we hitchhiked to London."