Anna Stibalová

„So when Chernobyl exploded, I guess it was in April 1986. And at that time I was in the maternity hospital in Ústí and we actually learned about it from the doctors, because they forbade us to drink milk. And it's because the radiation actually gets to the meadows and the cows eat it with the grass and the radiation gets into the milk. And otherwise from the radio, but we learned almost nothing about that.“

„I'll go back to 1968. I didn't experience it that much, but actually my older siblings did. The oldest, she was already working in a porcelain factory at the time, and I remember she ran up the stairs and ran into her parents' bedroom, turned on the radio. And it was sometime around half past five and there was a report that Russian troops had attacked us. And I know that my sister was terribly afraid that there would be a war, because she wanted to get married that year. On August 1, 1968, the brother enlisted in the army. So the parents were very worried about that too. He was at Klatov's and they were actually buried there, they had a light cannon ready, dad was there to look at it. So they were afraid that he wouldn't have to enlist in Russia, because there, like some soldiers, they actually left for the Soviet Union. And the younger one, the youngest of the three, was in Ostrava at the time and had terrible problems getting home. Because in Prague's main station, everything was jammed, trains weren't running, so that was the parents' biggest fear. I didn't experience it, I am, at the age of twelve, you know nothing. But I know that, like the mother, she was afraid, and until the sister came home, she probably didn't even sleep. So it was the year 1968, that was the bad part.“