Zuzana Nováková

"My mum had to go two days in advance to even get us there for that morning hour, so we got there early in the morning and waited outside that gate in the rain until they let us in. There was this - sort of a basement room, this long black corridor, and there were chairs, and there was glass and bars and wires in front of us, and they were bringing the prisoners in on the other side. There were maybe six or seven prisoners at a time, I don't know how many. There was a guard behind each of them, and of course we weren't allowed to shake hands, we couldn't. And I was in such a trance for most of that time, I was crying, I couldn't even speak. And so they were talking there [with my mother] and my father was like a shadow, very pale, but he was always smiling kindly. Then they took him away again and he was in those rags..."

"When my father was arrested, it was worse, I was in second class, I think. My best friends started avoiding me from afar and stopped talking to me, they were forbidden by their parents because we were the criminal element. So it wasn't pretty. Or maybe when I would come to my friend's flat, they would slam the door in my face and tell me not to go there anymore. I was a little kid, I was experiencing these things, I didn't really know what was going on. Then the biggest shock for me was after a year when we found out from the newspaper that my dad was sentenced to 24 years [25 years] and when I was in class my classmates brought me the newspaper. I couldn't believe it at all, I was in complete shock, so I was there crying through the all lessons. So the teacher was very good to me. But I couldn't imagine seeing my dad when I was grown up, maybe married. Well, it was crazy. It was a pretty bad experience."