Josef Ruszelák

"A man came to me. He was a State Security officer, there's no other way to call it, and he began to question me, to probe and ask questions. I was annoyed, so I said to him, 'You are asking questions about the party chairman. I'm a non-partisan, so what do I care. If you want to know anything about him, let's call him, I have a phone number. Or I'll tell you where his office is and go ask him. And then he went on to ask questions about the director Slavík. He was said to be a big communist. He came in after 1968, when Lhotský and the dramaturge Roubínek and many people had to leave the theatre. He was a pretty good guy. He was a former partisan and had a good position in the party, but he didn't abuse it."

"My mother's brother was arrested for participating in the resistance and cooperating with the partisans in the Kroměříž region. I experienced a story with him that is impossible to forget. Before he was arrested, it was in 1942 - I was four years old, but it stuck in my memory - he brought me a kit made of artificial stone. He and my father were tinkering with something in our backyard henhouse. That's the earliest experience I have of the wartime and my memories of my uncle. I went into the henhouse afterwards to see what they were doing and dug up some strange eggs, very heavy. I took them and I went down our alley and I was quite boasting to people and friends: 'I have something you don't have'. I got to the end of the street and a man noticed me and said, 'Let me see what you have,' and he took it from me."