Vlasta Lášková roz. Kvasničková

“Because he wanted to stick to pedagogy he decided. And thanks to the inspector he got a place as a teacher at primary school. He went a bit lower. He worked in Hostomice somewhere in North Bohemia. However, his teaching methods were following. He took the pupils out to the nature, they did sightseeing and excursions, he taught right in the middle of nature. Of course he couldn't teach Marxism-Leninism, it was totally strange to him. So those inspections coming to see him blamed him for it. They pressed him by lowering his wages and threatened with notice all the time. However, he started being interested in musicology at that time.”

“Of course he was thinking about that because of course he couldn't see any ways. He had no chances of his works being published here, he couldn't see any working opportunities here at that time. He took his chance during the three years after the war when you were allowed to travel abroad to the West, students especially. Well, he visited France, Denmark, Germany, he had friends everywhere and he made them easily. He simply made friends abroad easily because of his interests and knowledge. There was no ideological pressure there. Nobody demurred that it was Marxist enough or not. So he had a great chance that if he got abroad he could assert himself according to his competences and his wishes. So he occupied himself with the thought of emigration to the West. Then he met his former student, a younger one, he must have been about ten years younger, the guy. And they arranged that they would try to flee through West Berlin, well, through Berlin because he knew the city a bit.”

“However, it was at the time of the February Communist coup d'etat. Well, he was absolutely politically disinterested. He had no idea about what was going on, he just didn't like it. He didn't take part in demonstrations, neither student ones nor anti-student ones. He went on with his work and with his studies. It did him harm just at his secondary school for the first time. The teaching staff was called on to take part in an hour-general strike. They had to assemble in a large hall and listen all those political and Marxist speeches there. He simply stayed in his teacher's room and checked his students' works. They blamed him for that even later when they terminated his employment with him. He was blamed for showing poor interest in events, in state political events because he didn't take part in the general strike.”

“We were growing up in the family of a goldsmith, a man who was a master in his profession. He more or less created in gold, silver and precious stones. He made jewellery of a high quality and he himself designed them for his boss as well. So he was the first worker out of the eight in the workshop but he never set his own business. Because he was absolutely reasonable, he didn't smoke, he didn't drink and he gave all his wages to the family, we never felt any shortage. But we were always regarded as children of poor parents and we belonged to working class according to the later Communist division. Even though my father didn't have any higher education because his parents didn't ensure his studies, he was very concerned about his children's highest possible education at that time. Eventually, all his five children graduated from university.”