Jiří Kynos

“In 1959 our dad was imprisoned within the so-called Action S. The reasoning for it was that me and my brother were receiving a scholarship without any legal entitlement. In 1960 the Ministry of Education published a regulation according to which children from trade families were not supposed to receive scholarship. They applied it to our case even though we only received scholarship before 1959. They undertook a house search, confiscating a collection of paintings and all the valuable belongings. My dad was sentenced to two and a half years. He then had to serve his sentence in Příbram and upon return in 1962 he told us: ‘If I live for another eight or ten years, I am good because people who have been there tend to fall ill with cancer within ten years.’ He died on 2 August 1968 at half past seven in the morning. At half past nine, a notice of his rehabilitation arrived from the Supreme Court. Pavel Rychetský’s father opened this case up in 1965 as a textbook case of abuse of power. My father was rehabilitated but our property was only returned to us in 1989.”

“We were told that if we managed to finish the 4x100 m relay in less than forty seconds we would be nominated for the Olympics. Back then, the world record was a little above 39 seconds. We have had our last chance in September 1964 when an international athletics race took place at Strahov in Prague. We competed against the Hungarians. The 4x100 m relay was the last discipline. The Hungarians won by about a meter. The final times had appeared on the board: Hungary – 39.8, Czechoslovakia – 39.9. Our team was composed of Pepík Votrubec, Josef Trousil, me and Vilda Mandlík. I said: ‘We have made the limit; we will go to the Tokyo Olympics.’ But the Hungarians filed a protest, stating that they had won by over a meter and that they had actually finished in 39.7 which was their nomination limit. It is still alive in my memory: Dr. Kantůrek, the head referee, took a sponge and left the Hungarians with 39.8, wiping off our 39.9 and writing 40 instead. We were, so to say, left empty-handed and stayed home.”