Dušan Žampach

"That June-July 1990, when the holidays in Bavaria began. The roof had poles, it was on about four poles. I was really holding on to that one pole and just watching it go by, and I was afraid that I would get dizzy and fall under some car. Those were passenger cars. The trucks were going too."

"The opening took place on September 7, 1971, after much deliberation. On the German side they were ready perhaps a month in advance. The Czech side could have opened it perhaps as early as the beginning of August. But what happened there was that the German side wanted to make an event out of it, the opening of the western border, which was not at all desirable in the time of normalisation. There were German journalists from the daily newspapers, camping in the opposite meadow, waiting for the Czechs to make a move and open the border crossing. Eventually the Czechs decided that it was no longer bearable to drag it out, so they all agreed. The day before, they announced to the Bavarian side: 'Tomorrow at 10 o'clock we will open.' On the Czech side, there was no mention that anything was being opened, it was not desirable at all. There was no such information at all. Nevertheless, the people from Lenora, you could say the officials from the Lenora glassworks, found out, they had an exit clause, which was the assumption. Two hours before the opening they were already standing at the barrier in Strážne waiting. When the hour came, they were let in from the so-called heavy barrier up to the customs. Of course, they had to look around. There were already some German journalists there from the German side. They [officials from the Lenore glassworks] had a suitcase full of that glass. In short, several times more than the limit at that time. I don't remember exactly what it was. There were phone calls to the Customs headquarters: 'There's a situation here, we're opening up, the Lenore glassworks are here, they've got a lot, what should we do?' But they had much more than double. Anyway, they left it afterwards, so they were the first passengers."