Miroslav Marusjak

"Someone must have stolen it or gotten some blanks at work. They took the tape out of the typewriter, put the membrane in, so when it was without the tape, the letters actually punctured the membrane. I bought some printing ink in a can, which we later had in the woods. I took the roller that was for the photos, put a foam board on a piece of board, covered it with fabric, put ink on it, ran the roller through it. I was doing A4 size, but I had it as A5, so it was four pages. I put the foam down, ran the roller over it. I did that about a hundred times before it started to rip and before the membrane started to tear. Well, that was just one side, it was crazy work. I had it split up in my room, now I just have to finish it, print it."

"Cars came or we all went out, there were more of us. And they started checking us one by one - ID cards, they started writing them down, they looked at somebody: 'You have a moustache now and it's not on your ID card, 50 crowns fine!' And things like that. Basically, I got used to the fact that when I got off somewhere and I had a bag on my back, I was already trying to be in the forest, because they automatically checked us and asked where we were going."

"When there was an election, that was interesting, my wife and I dealt with it quite intelligently at the time, I said, 'Man, to chase me around the house with an urn, that I didn't vote, or something...' so we always went to the office and said, 'I'm not going to be here at election time, I'm going to be out. I'll take a travel ticket.' I flushed it down the toilet, and it was settled, right? And grandma said she came to the polls, went behind the curtain, took it out (the ticket), threw holy pictures in the envelope, threw it in, and always said, 'Help the snake from under the stove and it’ll bite you.'"

"There was a boy at the fire, it was on Hermanky again. He probably won an award and just played guitar there – maybe some Merta, Janota and some of his (songs). And I guess they already knew about us, so we kind of got caught up in it and, 'You've got these tapes.' And, 'You have the tapes.' He was from Bredlicna, so he came with me to my house. I gave him some tapes that he was going to record something for me. His name was Holub, and I found out after that, that he had a problem with the StB with the tapes. It was sent to me by his wife, what he had already recorded it for me. (There was) so much pressure on him, though had kids, he hung himself."

"For example, in '68, I was at camp, it was actually the third tour, Bystřice pod Hostýnem, and I know that I wrote a letter home, an eight-year-old boy: 'Come for me, there will be a war with the Russians.' As I understand it... and our parents gradually took us away. Maybe I was there two days (less) or I don't know how much they took me (before the camp actually ended). The other kids were taken by bus, or their parents went to get them."