Zdeněk Kolek

"The second brother originally wanted to study to be a priest. Then a state facility in Litomyšl was designated, and it was regarded as being organized by the state, so he didn't go there. He was conscripted into the PTP [Pomocné technické prapory - Technical Auxiliary Battalions - transl.] if you know what that was. They weren't like the PTPs depicted in the "Black Barons". He actually worked in the mines, a man who was not used to that. But imagine... Three and a half years. After two years and all in the army... they didn't get... They only got food. Only after 1955, it reached even the UN that in fact, they were being exploited here... so the harsh phase of the PTP was banned. The milder kind, like the one the author of the "Black Barons" experienced, was more fun than work. In the end, in 1955, my brother got a severance pay. He got money that was just enough to buy a suit."

"One of my friends brought the Teachers' Newspaper, he said his daughter was a teacher. I said, 'I have the diploma, but it's invalidated,' that's what I told him. And this one guy said that he had an uncle at the Ministry of Education, that he talked to him, and he said, 'This is the first time I've heard that you can add something to a diploma, have him come to see me with it.' So when I got there with the diploma, he showed it to all his officemates. I said there were more of us. 'You'd have to investigate.' They sent an order to Brno. In the meantime, the dean of the faculty, I think, had already been removed. The times were already changing. They sent an order to send me a diploma authorizing me [to practice the profession of a teacher] instead."