Petr Kozánek

“We wanted to go on and there was a crowd of militiamen. One came and said, 'No, they're not going anywhere.' We just looked. My colleague, Jaroslav Kvíd, was his name, said something in the sense: 'It probably won't be that bad,' or something like that. But politely, not something utterly offensive. The guy with the machine gun took him over his neck and over his head, knocking him down. ,Down to the ground! Spread your hands,´ and they searched us. They chased us to the bus and beat us mad like idiots. Then they took us somewhere to Kosir and the first floor. There were already soaked boys, vomiting in various ways, just a terrible theater. Beating kept on the way all the time, but it made no sense, nobody was doing anything there. They beat us and screamed at us, just an idiotic theater. I was twenty years old, so of course I was terrified of what was going on. We were there till morning and then drove us to Pankrác. At Pankrac, I think there was only more beating down here in such an aisle. They stuffed us, I remember, fifteen on the cell for two people. Without blankets, without anything and we had to sleep on the ground. Without toilet paper either. There was no sink. We could only get washed by having to slam and ask the guard to flush the toilet, flushing was from the other side. So you went to the toilet, and when you wanted to wash yourself, you had to drink water from the toilet. We didn't get any water at all. So we've been there for over a month.”

“When I went with Veronika, they got a great idea. First, they always gave me VHS tapes, so they gave us a player and a computer. It was the first computer; it was just like the Martians landing down on the planet. We got a huge computer to play on and I don't know what. It was in the original packaging, wrapped with polystyrene, and it was a huge box. We had a suitcase open at the back because it was a big box, and there it was stuffed. We arrived at the border and they were perplexed. Here we were weaned. I say, 'Veronica, we need to pray well.' But she didn't start freaking at all, or that she had a problem with it. So we prayed nicely, they left us there for about an hour and then began to discuss it. They expected something in the boxes. They pulled out the boxes, that was the original packaging. They pulled out the computer, it was declared, and of course we registered everything. That was over an hour, I don't remember exactly. The point was that they were tired, I think so, and they didn't go any further. They dug up all this, found there was nothing. So they said, 'Well pack it up.' But they didn't say, 'Okay, let's move on.' So we packed it up, and went. And we brought the literature back then.”