Ing. Petr Rádl

"This superintendant was a Communist ofcourse, so I though it would be really funny to say, you know... I think that's the only time I did say... that he doesn't have a positive attitude to the socialist state, which I kind of knew... in my opinion it wasn't really telling on him, because obviously he kept his place, he was a normal Communist, you know, a believing one. So I said to myself: I'll give him one back for how he bosses me about."

"What I would really like to know, all these those testimonies that I gave... I didn't ever give them any written ones though. Except one - when I went to Marocco with my wife, then I was supposedto write what sort of passport control they had at the various borders. I really enjoyed writing that, because unlike the awful border controls when going to West Germany then they had freedom there, so I think the best was at the Austrian-Italian border, where the guard, and this was an amzing experience for me, came along in plain clothes, with just a badge. And my wife was at the toilet just then, and that was it, really. I told him she was at the toilet, and he didn't check anything at all. I really enjoyed to see those dummies pinching their nose, so they knew how it was supposed to work at a border, that there wan't really a border... well, there was a border, but... That was about the only thing I gave them in writing, so everything... he always asked me some questions and I quite enjoyed telling them things that would make them uncomfortable, how people, when prices went up and such, how they fault the Party and the Government. And he always, like, asked who said it, and he wanted me to name people, but I never wanted to do that."

"One more important thing: I didn't sign anything for a long time. I know that today they distinguish between agents that didn't know anything and agents who signed themselves, that those ones did know... Well, I would distringuish between those thatwent of their own accord to tell on people and those who... Well, they made me... I did it because, because I was afraid that if I didn't do it that they would throw me out of school or put me in prison, and then I was afraid they would throw me out of work. I was... I wanted to be a hero again, so I wasn't in the ROH (Revolutionary Union Movement), but then... To put it short, they called me once, we had a special section [at work], and that was two-faced, so on one side there were the people behind the bars at the Railway Administration, so for one it was public, the entrance into the building and such, well and then there was teh partthat was for the StB. So they called me there once. I didn't realise before that the StB has one of their people there all the time. They gave me this piece of paper there, and said that if I didn't sign it, then they'll throw me out from work, and I'll be in trouble too, and that I have to improve the... I think I enjoyed it, that intelectually... I enjoyed seeing how stupid they were, telling them things that didn't at all... it cost me some time aswell, but if I was on their side, then seeing an informant, or agent, or whatever they called them... Like, I really couldn't have been of any value to them. They found out how it worked at the borders, and I think that was the only... they probably knew that already, right. And so he gave me this paper, and on it... it didn't seem like informing to me... something about if it was endangering the interests of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and if it was endangering the railworks and I don't know, so... so I signed it. Someone told me I'm in the list twice, so if it's because of this... I really don't know what year it was."

"We have that great uncle in my family... and so now it's terrible for me that I'm listed as an agent forthe StB, I tried writing to court, so that they would make public everything I had said, so they would decide if I told on someone, because dad's uncle was Emanuel Rádl, who started off as a biologist, but was a philosopher during the First Republic, my dad told me about him. When I was at an exam in organisation and management at the University of Economics, well for the whole time of my studies... it's not that usual a name, the whole time no one asked me about it, and this professor Opička, Vopička, organisation and management, asked me if I'm related to that reactionary philosopher. I said I divide philosophers into good and bad. So at the time they only published Útěcha z filozofie (Solace of Philosophy), I liked that, well and dad remembered him, so he... so it was this... so then when it became public that I was an agent for the StB, then I felt like I had completely... no one from my family held it against me, but among my friends they did quite a bit, especially from the group I burned the voting tickets with, and some people from work."

"I thought it was odd, I didn't have the courage to say that I wouldn't do it, because of my studies, then my work, because I was afraid they wouldn't take me anywhere, that I don't go to vote maybe. Then when there were the elections again, when I was married, then my wife told me that if I didn't go vote, that they wouldn't accept Madlenka into nursery school. But I didn't go anyway, I had the so-called 'courage' for that, and they took Madlenka into the nursery school anyway. Why it was so important for him, I reckoned that they didn't really realise that they were so stupid. What I enjoyed about it was that I was really supposed to be the stupid one and they were meant to control me psychically or spiritually and get from me whatever they wanted. What I think is that they would have had to shine those lights at me or burn my feet with cigarettes, like they did in the Fifties. I quite enjoyed having one up on them mentally."

"It made me pretty wretched. And I didn't even look for it in that Cibulka's list, I can't remember who told me about it first. Some two people at work told me."