Doc. MUDr. Zlatko Pastor Ph.D.

"There was a Border Guard patrol, that's what it was called, and there were some two guards with machine guns and some officer, or Border Guard officer, and they [the kidnappers] stopped when they saw them. It's strange that I guess the patrol didn't react to it or I don't know how they didn't react to it, they just stopped the bus. And they [the kidnappers] again, I know this from the protocols because I read it last night, they said, "Next!" and they ordered me to tell the patrol the same thing that the friend was supposed to tell the patrol. So the bus pulled up somewhere near the patrol, they pushed me out to tell them that, and the bus kept going. Well, and I know I got off, I walked over to the patrol, there was a patrol nearby, I don't know exactly, but what I remember so vividly, which has a sort of tragicomic air to it. When I talked to the officer - I don't know what rank he had - I told him that the bus had been hijacked, that it was heading for the western border, and that the hijackers had ordered that the border be open, or that they were going to shoot the students. So he, even though the bus was already somewhere in the distance, he ripped the machine gun off the shoulder of the base soldier, the soldier on basic duty, like this, and he took the machine gun, like heroically, as if he was shooting to show some action, even though the action was not necessary at all."

"And we just parked the bus in the parking lot of a hostel by a dam, I don't know what it was called, and they [the teachers] went to arrange the accommodation. We were sitting there in that bus, I guess we were waiting to see what was going to happen, how we were going to check in. Three of these figures came out of the woods with some rifles, and what I read yesterday, I don't remember, one was a small-bore rifle, a shotgun, and a machine gun - something like that exists maybe. And so they headed for the bus. One was talking to the driver, standing at the window - again, I read that from the logs yesterday, I don't remember. But what I do remember is that we were sort of talking, that they were sort of strange people, somebody said gamekeepers going, or hunters going, or something like that, so it was sort of like a relatively funny thing. But the fun passed when this one guy got on the bus, or got on the steps, which I remember, and I remember the shot, yeah, he fired one of the guns." - "Like into the ceiling?" - "No, no, he shot into the air. He was partially outside and he stepped into those steps to show what was going on, that it wasn't some kind of a joke, so he fired and got on that bus. And they sort of spread out, so probably all three of the hijackers were already there - we'll call them that - and it was this old bus where, I think, there was a hump in the middle, there was a motor or I don't know what it was. - "It was this round Karosa." - "And they actually sat down opposite us and ordered the first half of the bus to move to the back rows, which caused a bit of a slight panic and confusion because the bus was full. Again, I read that there were 37 of us, almost 40 people, and so those seats had to be double occupied. Well, and I was sitting in the middle of the bus, so I was in the front row, which was a little bit more uncomfortable because they pointed the guns at us. So it was a rather unpleasant feeling, which I also remember, that when somebody points three rifles, a shotgun at you, it's not very pleasant. Well, and we took off, and one of the kidnappers had a map, again I read that, I don't remember, and we took off towards the border towards the west, because, and it was like a border, a border of East, West Germany, Poland I think, I think, so we took off towards the west."

"So it was a school trip that was supposed to be two days. We were going to Weimar, Goethe's city, and it was a combined two classes of the third year of high school. I think we were visiting Carlsbad on that first day and then we were going to spend the night at a dam. And then the second day we were supposed to go to Germany and walk around Weimar and come back again."