"From time to time they [officers] would call me in and say, 'Well, what's new?' I'd say, well, not much. We haven't talked; he works somewhere and stuff, and what would happen if I said that too. No, I said, I don't know anything. Sometimes he'll give us the gum and that's all, we don't talk about it. 'Well, you have to be a little curious about what he does - if he wants to run away, not just from here [the military service] but also in general [from the country].'"
"He just took them somewhere, I don't know, to Aš maybe, and said, 'Boys, this is it, we have to change here,' whether in a car or a wagon, I really don't know. He took them there, they went out and there was this big house behind the, or like behind the border. He said, 'Guys, here we are. Now, give me your stuff and keep some of it,' what they picked up at home or money or what. I don't know, my brother never told me until he came back, after a while. Well, there were cops in the house and they just immediately arrested them. 'Guys, what did you do, how did you do it' and so on, and the trafficker guy just disappeared without a trace. They didn't know where he went, nothing. He just did his job, he left those guys there and they got busted. From then on, he was locked up from here because it was still in Czechoslovakia."
"My father thought for a while, then he remembered and said, 'Right, they were looking to see if we hid something within the walls, like gold.' They were stealing gold. Or they'd meet somebody with a bicycle in the street, and said, 'Davay' - and that was it. They'd always have a machine gun or a rifle on, they'd point it at you and, 'Davay!' Or it was 'Give me your watch!' They were stealing. I remember seeing one who had watches all over his arms up to the elbows, all watches, and then some more up above. Some of them even put watches on their legs, that's right, yes."
Pavel Pijáček was born in Zlín on 13 August 1940 as the third child of his mother Ludmila, née Kunovjanková, and his father František. His father practiced law in Uherský Brod and his mother was a housewife. He witnessed air raids on Uherský Brod and the liberation of the town by the Soviet army. Following the communist coup in 1948, his father was prevented from practicing law independently and had to commute to Slovakia for work. Brother Jiří was not allowed to study due to his poor cadre profile and decided to cross the border illegally. The trafficker was a State Security agent, however, and led the group to a false border near Aš where they were all arrested. The brother was sent to prison for seven months and then to a forced labour camp. The mother had difficulties facing the situation and died tragically in 1952. After graduating from high school in 1957, Pavel Pijáček worked at Slovácké strojírny for two years and then entered compulsory military service in Uherské Hradiště. After finishing it in 1961, he was admitted to the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. In 1968 he married Anna Hybka and together they raised two children, Pavel and Jana. Completing his studies, he joined Dopravoprojekt Brno where he worked until 1996, then worked in Kovoprojekt for six years. He was living in Brno in 2024.
Daughter Jana's baptism, from left: sister Naděžda, wife Anna with daughter Jana, witness with son Pavel, witness's mother's sister, and wife's parents, 1975
Daughter Jana's baptism, from left: sister Naděžda, wife Anna with daughter Jana, witness with son Pavel, witness's mother's sister, and wife's parents, 1975
