Doc. PhDr. Václav Štěpánek Ph.D.

"When the fighting started in Croatia between the newly formed Serbian autonomous region of Krajina and the Croatia militia, [Brno-based Lidová demokracija editor-in-chief Antonín Drobný] told me to go. And since then I have been to Yugoslavia several times and I have always written about it. It was extremely difficult because there were no e-mails and no mobile phones. So to send messages by e-mail, to find somebody who had some e-mail, was difficult. But strangely enough, each of the hostile parties liked the journalists because they were telling them their truth. So they let us send the e-mail from their offices. So much more difficult than writing the story was sending the story. We were like poor relatives there, because those journalists from the West already had satellite phones and other things we never dreamed of. We always took out a typewriter and wrote. Of course, it was also very dangerous and very sad. Because I perceived Yugoslavia as a country that I liked and where I even wanted to stay. Since 1987 I had suspected that something was going to happen there, but none of us could imagine what it would lead to. It was painful for me. I even got into situations where bullets were flying and it wasn't pleasant. I've had my life threatened twice. But far worse for me was talking to refugees and people who had lost everything. They believed in Yugoslavia, and now it's fallen down like a house of cards."