Karel Mikolín

"As far as the sabotage is concerned, there was really minimal work [in forced labour]. I was employed as an electrician, that is, if a machine broke down, and in those days the machines were quite simple, they had a switch and so on, not much, some fuses. So, there was a system in place. We were in that electrical workshop, so whoever needed to repair a machine, he got a paper from his foreman, a request, came to our workshop, and the foreman was a German, also a wartime, disabled man. And it was established that, especially on night shifts, whoever didn't want to work came with the request. He loosened the fuse, the machine stopped working, he went to his foreman, who did not understand it at all, filled out a sign that they wanted repairs, and he came to us. And the typical thing was: Wie viel? That means how long he doesn't want to work. Zwei Stunden. And that was the sign that I came over to the machine, disassembled it a little bit to make it look like I was working on it, and we went to bed in the so-called kabelschachte. And two hours later I came in, tightened the fuse, and the factory went on. That was normal, typical."

"Especially the sixty-eighth year, because on the night of August 20-21, the army had planned an alarm drill. And it was, because it was a drill, we commanders knew about it so we could be there to check on how things were going with my unit. So, I knew that the alarm was going to go off at four o'clock. Well, now when the alarm started going off, because we had it in the apartment, it started going off at one o'clock, I said, what kind of a fool messed it up, it's not supposed to be until four o'clock in the morning. But I went to the barracks, then a car came, so it loaded me up, brought me to the barracks. At the entrance to the barracks, the unit supervisor was waiting for me and told me to come immediately to the army commander. So I went, it was across the street, the Pentagon we called it, so I went there and there I learned that we were being occupied. So, I broke out in a deadly sweat, because I had half the unit out on various exercises. I said: 'Jesus Christ, something could happen here!' So, when I heard about it there, he said, wait for the order. So I went back to the barracks, I immediately started to call those units that were out, I gave them orders not to look for conflicts, immediately to the barracks, not to make any contacts and to come as soon as possible. Inform me every half hour on the radio network how the move to the barracks was progressing. That way, I could keep track of how they were going back, and they were already in Moravia, near Karlovy Vary and so on."

"Well, I didn't want to stay in the army. My dream was to have a big electrical company, doing electrical work in houses and so on, that I would be a huge company. Well, they made me stay in the army. Because I was a communist, they forced me under such a threat: Either you stay in the army and you can determine your crew, or you go into civilian life and in three weeks we'll draft you and you'll be where we want you, where we need you."