Vlastimil Stratílek

“Well, perhaps thanks to the productivity and durability of these machines… and their quality… at the time the Germans seized our republic, German supervisors were installed to each of the engineering companies. These were usually engineers who had to evaluate whether the product is needed for the World War II or whether it is a production which is completely useless during war. A certain engineer Lefler started in our company. I want to point out that I saw the arrival of the German army to Vysoké Mýto with my own eyes as a four years old child, I will never forget the picture. And this engineer Lefler was somehow given the responsibility for the evaluation of this product and after he familiarised himself with its functioning and performance, he recommended this production to be conceived as war production and this way the company continues in production without losing its employees or even being shut down as unnecessary.”

“But he complicated it even more… Not to his disadvantage, but the whole season was complicated by my uncle Václav who gave his brother-in-law money, the amount of 4.000 – I want to point out that he wanted to emigrate because he was the son from a hotel and his sister was my uncle’s wife. During the time he wanted to escape he prepared for it with some group which unfortunately already consisted of undercover members of secret service. So, when these people wanted to help my uncle or were helpful, they all appeared in one trial and even more people were added there. I have here a photo from the trial in Vysoké Mýto where they were sentenced, my uncle to 13 years for the money, his brother-in-law, the second one, the hotelier, was sentenced to… I am not sure now whether seven or six years. Another one – the publican who handed over the money, Mr. Hlaváček, was sentenced to… two years. Well, it was a show trial, everyone in the audience gave it a clap, on the other hand it gave other people the shivers as they saw what is actually happening.”