Igor Tomeš

“When they issued me my passport at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they asked me to help them with information in places that our diplomats cannot reach. I later found out it was the State Security intelligence service. At the time I was a loyal Communist, so I regarded it as a duty to my country, it was intelligence, so no snitching on people, but watching to see if there is something in the works aimed against Czechoslovakia, or something that Czechoslovakia could participate in. The things that diplomats do every day. Back then our diplomats were blocked from doing this, they were isolated.”

“They chose 50 of the 220 [applicants]. Someone came here and did a written test with us and took it back to Geneva. They chose nine of us and interviewed us, they chose three people for the ILO Director-General, one judge from Pilsen, one person from the Youth Union, and me. The Communists were rooting for the one from the Youth Union, they [ILO] wanted the judge, but he was a National Socialist - that was unacceptable to our Communists. I was a Communist, just a rank-and-file member, but I was an assistant professor, I spoke good English and a bit of French, so I was the one chosen, and I went to Geneva for five years.”

“I grew up in China and Asians consider me to be the greatest Asian among Europeans. When I’m with them, I behave as one of them. I grew up among them for fifteen years. [...] You will never see me not laughing. Even if I’m sick, I’ll still smile. I got that from the Chinese. You won’t see me complain, even when something hurts me. They say that when you complain, you hurt your friends and delight your enemies. And that’s inappropriate.”

“Although a Communist, I became an enemy of Communists. After spending five years abroad I had accessed information that wasn’t available here. I found out about the Gulag, all those monstrosities. I understood that there isn’t such a difference between Communism and Fascism, that they’re both dictatorships, just with a slightly different ideology. [...] I took part in what culminated in Prague Spring, and was very active in all that was going on, I became vice-chairman of the lawyers’ union.”