Jaroslav Novotný

“The trial was held several months later and I had prepared my defence… at that time I read Feuchwanger’s Goya, by the way, and there is a beautiful passage when he defends himself in front of the inquisition, and for me it served as a source of inspiration. I thought, I will defend myself like this: ‘You are the villains who have sold this country, not I. I was only speaking the truth, I have not written anything which would not have been true.’ I did not even know when the trial would take place, only one day before the defence counsel, a lawyer whom I had not seen during those past three weeks, came to tell me: ‘I am your defence counsel. Your trial will be held tomorrow and I will be defending you.’ I said: ‘Judge, I don’t need you, I will defend myself.’ And I told him how I had planned my defence. He said: ‘You are no John Huss to get yourself burnt at the stake. Huss did not have a wife and a son. You have a three-year-old son and so you will not let them burn you at the stake, but you will deny everything.’”

“Sending photos for exhibitions, that was the only thing that they could not forbid me. There was some international treaty which they were bound to respect. Of course, they opened every one of the packages, and they knew what was inside, and so on. They kept summoning me for interrogations all the time, and asking me with whom I was keeping in touch, and so on. I said: ‘You have just opened my mail, so what else do you want from me?’ Of course, if one wins at some photo salon, there is a custom that not only they send you a prize, but they also invite you to come to receive it in person, at your own expense. I could have traveled the world quite a bit like that, because I had exhibitions at about more than thirty countries, but of course I was never allowed to travel anywhere. And so we only communicated through post.”