Pavel Záleský

"I was walking a lot because I was transferred from a supervisor to a labourer position. I walked the line from Vizovice to Zlín. I was stopped by my friend Láďa Kolínek, who was copying photographs for me. He told me that there had been a raid on Jarda Němec and Pavel Dudr, with whom I worked. So I said, 'I guess they'll come for me, too.' I got to Zlín, changed my clothes and wanted to go home to Otrokovice. In Zlín, I could already see that Secret Police were following me. I knew it was bad. So I wanted to confuse them a little bit. I got on the train to go home. They were driving cars next to the train. But I jumped off the train half way in Malenovice, took the trolleybus to Otrokovice and went to church. When I got off the bus, I saw that our building was already surrounded. I said to myself: 'This is it.' I went to church and I prayed. Then I thought, 'Why should I surrender?'. I lived in the first entrance, but I went to the third entrance, went through the basement, upstairs and I was home. They were still waiting for me outside. The doorbell rang, they asked for me, so I answered. They were angry that I fooled them. When I opened the door, they immediately stuck their foot in the door. Interrogation, search warrant. They took me to the police station in Zlín. There, ten people took turns on me. They took turns on me for several hours. Meanwhile, my wife was being watched by a neighbour who worked for the city police, so she couldn't hide anything. They brought me back. They took a lot of stuff, but they found no evidence. I had an address book hidden behind a painting. They didn't find it even though they looked behind the painting. Under the bathtub, I had copy paint in a cup. They didn't find it. There was copy paper and paint in the hallway that I didn't have time to hide. It was in a box that they passed by many times but never opened it. I felt God's help, the power that protects me from being imprisoned."

"When I moved to Otrokovice, I thought that twelve copies were not enough, that I had to think of something better. So I invented a mass made of gelatine, lead oxide and various chemical compounds, and I made a mould into which I printed the matrix. You could make up to 30 copies of that matrix. But it was very wet. I had to dry it on the floor, so the whole flat was lined with drying papers. If the Secret Police had come, it would be the end for me. Once, when the papers were drying everywhere, the bell rang, and Father Jenda Žaluda came. When he saw that, he said: 'So you will be arrested soon.' I said: 'No. Our Lady protects me.'"

"I read a lot of spiritual books and felt God was calling me to do something. There was a shortage of spiritual literature. The communist regime claimed that we had religious freedom, that there was plenty of literature, but it was impossible to get Bibles. So what kind of religious freedom is that? So I said to myself, okay, God wants me to help people get what they want. So I tried to get to the religious literature, even from abroad, from the Christian Academy in Rome. And from priests, of course. Everything I got my hands on, I copied and distributed. I considered it very important."