“He says: ‘Where you going?’ I say: ‘To the barracks, I’ve got some cigarettes in my case still, some crowns, some cash.’ He says: ‘Y’know, I wouldn’t advise you to go back there, ’cause as soon as you get there, you’re in for it. It’ll be either the cooler or the labour corps.’ I say: ‘And why?’ - ‘Because they got the information that you’re politically unreliable.’ That was in ’49. So I say: ‘Okay, well I don’t know what to do.’ So I say I’ll head home to Trutnov. And he says: ‘I wouldn’t advise that either.’ ”
“And the President asked me, I remember as if it was today: ‘So what do you sing?’ And I said: ‘President, Sir, yours mainly.’ He looked at me in such a way that tears sprang out of me a bit, because he had a slightly sombre smile... Those of us who were there, we didn’t know each other, River Scouts and association Scouts, the River Scouts were from Smíchov, so he stood in front of us and said: ‘Boys, promise me you’ll be good Czechoslovaks!’ And we, although we didn’t know each other, we were all moved to reply as one: ‘Yes, President, Sir.’ ”
“All of us who were on the barricades, we were glad we could go home and rest, while suddenly the streets were full of glossy, dandy heroes, who killed Germans. It’s true that there was some falseness.”
Jan Květoslav Motejlek was born in 1925 in Doudleby nad Orlicí. He completed primary school. As a child, he was a Scout in the Freedom Scouts organisation in Prague. At sixteen years of age, he decided to flee to England through Hamburg, which brought him a one-year sentence in the Lechfeld labour camp. After his release, he worked in secret for the resistance movement Intelligence Brigade, in the 2nd Battalion, Toledo, which he passed on messages to from Germany. He was active during the Prague Revolt, on the barricades and at the radio house. Together with the Toledo Battalion, he oversaw the deportation of Germans from Trutnov and the surrounding area. During his military service, he was found to be politically unreliable. He emigrated to Germany in 1949, moving on to France, where he lived for 42 years. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1991. He now lives in Nymburk.
