Professor, PhDr. Soňa Šimková

“Milan Šimečka wanted to organise a secret meeting in Bratislava with Ludvík Vaculík and Ivan Klíma. Two of the foremost writers of the revival process, Vaculík wrote a file 2000 words signed by the masses of artists at that time, Ivan Klíma also a great writer, both dissidents. It was already normalisation. And that they will come to Bratislava,to our regular dissident meetings, and where we’ll put them. So Sona is so inconspicuous, they could be staying with her. I had one small studio and a couple of streets away, grandma had a one-room apartment. I went there often, shopping for her, sometimes I slept there.. Kalina and Simecka thought that we would put these two writers in my studio so they wouldn't go to the hotel. So that they would come to Bratislava completely illegally and secretly, and then they would leave nicely.And that they could talk at Simecka’s place about some of their projects. A couple of years passed, we thought what a great plan. After a few years, the Kalinas sought to equip their evictions. They ran out of patience when Julia (daughter) wasn't taken to college for about eight times, so they said they were over. They normally asked for eviction. And then a young man in a suit, in a pink tie, shaved, washed, rang at my door, told me that he was from the Ministry of the Interior and that he would like to talk. If I couldn't meet him. We had a meeting in Natálka, in a cafe. He started telling me that we know very well that you meet Kalinovci and go there regularly, we know very well that you lend your studio and that Vaculík and Klíma were sleeping in your studio and so on. So we would actually welcome you to give us information about them as you have such contacts. So that Kalinovci couldn’t make any more problems, before they are evicted because that might make things more complicated for them. So it would be a very good service from you if you came to tell us about the Kalinas, what they were doing, whether they are not doing illegal things. "

"Mom came horrified from the store once and said, imagine I went to the store and a salesman came to me and says," Comrade, what would you like?” He called me comrade, and he was on a first-name basis with me” That was her first experience, apparently, it repeated so many times, she grew accustomed to it. My mother was a rebel. Given her upbringing,that she was raised by catholic nuns, she became a rebel, dressing in an extravagant way, which was too visible in Zvolen. It caused alarm when she went shopping in red stockings, and I was angry because I didn’t like anything extravagant as a teenager and we were punished for her in school. They were watching us, they would get us because my father was a head of children's hospital, he had a good reputation, he was a nice, kind and humble person, who didn’t want us to stick out. It was a rule of grandparents also, surely also for racial reasons- do not provoke, be humble and inconspicuous.”