Otto Šplíchal

“One of my colleagues, who headed the department at school, fled to America with his wife and children. We went to visit them in Vienna, I took their car back. We flew to Vienna, you could still do that, it was the year 68, 69. It was still possible back then. Then they became American citizens, and they visited here while the Communists were still in power. Why am I saying it. He built himself up in America as a realtor, after some pretty tough beginnings. He built himself up enormously. And back then after 93, they came to visit again, and they invited us to Vienna, and he indicated that they would invite us to America. I took it with a pinch of salt. Nonetheless, in 94 they sent an invitation, and they paid for the whole journey and for a month’s stay. That was a big event, which I wouldn’t have managed to pull off on normally.”

“So we were woken by planes at around two or three a.m. We listened to the radio, then the television started up as well. I went to work in the morning, crazed by the whole matter like most people, because at the time we all lived with this huge hope that all the nonsense would end, and suddenly this happened.I must admit that I was quite naive, so I couldn’t even imagine that the occupation could take place. When it did, I went to work in the morning, where my boss told me: ‘Get your things and go, there’s no point seeing you here [in the state you’re in].”

“I have to boast that from the second year on, I was a captain, and from the third year I was the after-school [captain], who had considerable authority. We received wages from the start, there were yearbooks, where every payment was written out - for accommodation, for board, some money was set aside for clothes, to save up enough... And according to the behaviour of the individual members of the room, the captain decided whether to give each of them ten or five crowns of weekly pocket money - wages were weekly back then. And the after-school [captain] was the right hand of the carer, he directed the other captains. Every evening they’d visit each of the rooms and check under the beds if the shoes were polished.”