Miloslav Souček

"The entry fee did not belong to the rider, but to the sending organization. We received cash sums for the first to third prize. At the very beginning I was fourth in Switzerland in 1961. I received 1200 Swiss francs. I was paid one franc, crown 20 halers at the exchange rate of that time. So I got a few crowns. Then someone complained that it was unfair. So they paid us in tuzex vouchers. Even if I won many thousands of marks or francs, I had to hand them over. I got paid tuzex vouchers at a rate no one knew what it was. That was a little more acceptable after all. But they were not entitled to that. It makes sense that what a rider wins should be his. But that's how it was done back then.'

"Mr. Uhlík, the director of Metal Manufacturing Vlašim, did it for me. He was a member of the sports council at Svazarm. He went to discussions, and there he learned about it. Then he came to my house, I was just sick, and he says: 'Are you an outcast of society, or what are you, that they crossed you out, didn't give you a passport and labeled you an anti-state element?' I said: 'I don't know, I'm acting completely normally, I never organize anything, no gatherings. Nothing.' And he said to me: 'Would you be willing to sign the application for the party?' I answered him that I would be willing to sign even to the devil, so that we could continue with that motorcycling, because I was involved in the preparation, the production of the ESO machine. I soon got my passport back, and in 1959 I was traveling abroad normally."

"The commander of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp had a rowing boat built for him. He was looking for a painter who would paint it for him precisely. During the morning roll call, it was announced that the painters should apply. They wanted to choose. Dad didn't come forward because he knew this trick of theirs. They always made it easier to choose those to be executed. They called, for example, bricklayers, carpenters. He was afraid it was for that purpose. When they repeated the challenge the next day, he found the courage to apply. They took him to the carpentry shop where the little boat was ready. He painted it. When he had paints left and time, he painted a landscape on a piece of plywood. When the commander came to check on the progress of the work on the ship, he noticed the picture. He was asking my father to see if he could paint. My father painted when he was young and still did at that time. He admitted that he could. So he brought him a model of his two sons and wanted him to paint them roasting potatoes in a field where there were grain sheaves. Father illustrated the boys. And he let him go home for succeeding.”

"Mom cleaned apartments in German families. When dad came back from the concentration camp, he went to help her at the beginning. A man who was on the eastern front lived in an apartment on the square in Stříbro. A great hunter. When mom cleaned, dad took out the ashes and brought coal and firewood up to the apartment. When he had time, he looked in the closets. He found weapons in one. A box one meter big, one rifle next to another. My father chose one, it could be taken apart in half. Barrel separately and stock separately, it hung on a strap. He wanted to steal it. So, he tucked the barrel into his trouser leg and the stock into the other trouser leg, hanging it behind his neck via a belt. And he went home early. When he reached the town hall in the square, the air raid sirens began to sound. Those who could ran to hide in shelters. Dad couldn't run because he couldn't bend his legs. So, he shuffled around the town hall and just hid in an alcove by the hotel. He stood there and waited until they sounded the end of the alarm again. That's how he brought it home.'

"I received two versions of why the father was arrested. The first was that he fought in the pub to preserve the Czech school in Sulislav. It was a village near Stříbro, interesting in that when everything around was German, it was Czech. The second version was that it happened when the Germans held celebrations in the square in 1939. When they captured another city in Poland and advanced victoriously in the war, they always invited the entire population to the square where it was solemnly announced. At the end, they always sang the German national anthem and heiled at the same time. Dad got to it. He was leaning against the portal of a shop that sold sporting goods. He had his hands in his pockets even as the German national anthem was being sung. Before it finished, the Gestapo ran to him, arrested him and took him to the nearby town hall, where they had a prison set up for that purpose. And he never came back from there."

"Honza, he wanted to go to (university) and he didn't get there. To the agriculture university to Budějovice. I had a friend there, also a competitor, Bedřich Bendík. He was personally acquainted with the rector of that school and arranged for me to meet him. I got there and I had all the appeals and everything that I was doing for it all. He confessed to us then. He said: 'Mr. Souček. It's completely pointless what you're doing. There is a placement committee, made up of (different) employees. There is the director of the school and directors of all kinds of plants, the director of the farm, forests. Only the director of (Honza's) school Mr. Zeman should have raised his hand and say, I would stand behind that boy. It would be enough. If he didn't do it, then no one did.' And the rector told me: 'If this is written in the rationale, then no one dares to violate or exceed it. Because he would risk his position and place. No one would help you with that, that's just given."