Dobromila Kvasničková roz. Kopečná

“After the summer holiday he began studying law at the faculty, but then there was the February 1948 and other political purges followed. Students who did not come from working class families or who did not hold the materialist worldview did not have any chance to complete their studies. Even the teachers who were inconvenient for the communist regime were being expelled. The examining professor thus advised them at the end of summer vacation in 1948: those of you who can should prepare for the state examinations – that would be your last opportunity for the exam. The teachers themselves already suspected that the students would not have a chance to complete their studies. My husband told me that he did not think that he was sufficiently prepared, but he took his chances nonetheless. His other schoolmates who were more hesitant and who thought that they would not pass the exam then never received their university degrees.”

“I think of the following verses from the poem of our poet Viktor Dyk ‘The Land Speaks:’ How come you have forgotten your inheritance? Why did you hesitate and why did you betray? How could you consciously do the cursed deed? You could betray yourself. But betray your descendants? Why have you surrendered while you were breathing? What did you fear? What is death? Death means coming to me. Your mother earth opening her arms: how come you would defy her? You will learn how soft is the land for those who completed what they were expected to do. Your mother is begging you: Protect me, my son! Go, even if you walk to death with difficulty. If you leave me, I will not die, if you leave me you will die!”