Emil Paleček

“Following the return it was really fine, the first day. I saw my friends and mum. Then a man came to me, a policeman in civil dress. I think he actually came to my home. And he began to question me. And he mentioned who I was dating back then… And who was her father. Then they questioned me whatever, and invited me for interrogations. I remember them asking me the same things again and again, but I do not remember what it was. They probably wanted to get me for something. Of course I was afraid. What was interesting as well. There was a meeting of all employees in the institute and the director said: ‚I was informed there is a spy in the institute.‘ I did not know for sure whether he meant me, but that was what I deducted. As I noticed a car following me walking in the street. I was walking through the field and then got out and the same car was there still. That was rather unpleasant. And then I got bitten by a tick. When I recovered, I had paresis, and could not brush my hair and so on… And with the memory… When I recovered and got out of the hospital… Again they were trying to question me, but I really did not know much stuff back then. My advantage was that they were asking me something I actually did know, but I could say, I did not know at all. But mostly I really did not know anything. And gradually it all ceased.“

“That was Olga Borisovna Lepešinská, a Soviet laboratory worker, who discovered that the life starts in nail dirt etc. I do not remember all that nonsense. Later there was Lysenko. It was the two of them; Lysenko and Lepešinska. That was obligatory (reading) back then. Another thing was Mendel. Until 1965 he was a bourgeois co called scientist, priest and so on. Then due to Russian physicists… Stalin was dead already… who very much tried to avoid all the messing about with science… so then Mendel was finally rehabilitated.“