Professor Jindřich Štreit

"Ale dozvěděl jsem se zajímavé věci. Nebyl jsem podezřelý jen proto, že jsem vyfotil vojáka, ale – a to jsem se dozvěděl až od něho – byl jsem podezřelý, že jsem západní špion, který dělá fotografie pro Německo a mám kontakty se západem a všechno předávám dalším rozvědkám a tak dále."

"Já bych řekl, že se mohu charakterizovat jako jednotka naivity. Protože jsem neměl zkušenosti a vypěstovanou obezřetnost politického charakteru. Takže jsem šel do souvislostí s naivní představou, že by se něco mělo změnit. A s tímto pohledem jsem začal vytvářet fotografické soubory. I když jsem byl pedagog, učitel, tak vznikaly soubory na které se hledělo jako na téměř protistátní. Protože v té době, kdo chtěl vystavovat, tak umělecká tvorba se rekrutovala z toho, aby byla nezávadná pro režim. A já jsem si dovolil režim trochu demaskovat a ukazovat vesnický život realistickým způsobem."

“The secret police came to the exhibition which was held in Prague. They did not discuss anything with me, they confiscated my photographs and they closed the exhibition. I went home in the evening. The following day I went to take some photos as usual, photos of ordinary life. The day after I was at home and somebody rang the bell early in the morning. I went to open the door and the house was surrounded by secret police. When I opened the door, they started a house search which took thirteen hours. They turned the house upside down, including the coal in the cellar. They also searched the school in Jiříkov where I taught. When they were finished, they handcuffed me and they drove me to Prague and put me to a preliminary detention cell. Twenty-four hours later I was transported to the prison in Ruzyně. I spent about four months there.”

“In 1956 we had to move to the border region, to a small village called Těchanov. The reason for this was that my father mentioned the birthday of president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. They only let him finish teaching his class and they told him: ‘You will either got to work to a factory, or you will go to the border region and teach there.’ My father chose the second option, and we thus found ourselves in the foothills of the Jeseníky Mountains in the small village Těchanov where father continued in his work as a teacher.”

“I considered these photographs which I was taking to be ordinary photographs, because they realistically depicted the way of life in that village. I didn’t regard them as defamatory or aimed against the regime. When I was invited for an exhibition in Prague, I thus displayed them there and presented them as my work. But the secret police came to the exhibition even before its opening and they became interested in these photographs and the exhibition had been closed even before it could start.”