Iva Bejčková

“Then I remember, and my mom verified it, that since then, I hated the Christmas Eve from the bottom of my hear because I kept hoping that dad would return for the Christmas Eve. I spent the evening standing by the bedroom window and watched out for him to return. I must say, I still do it even in my old age, that I always go to look out of that window for a while.”

“He never wanted to talk about what happened there. Only later when my brother was already dead and I was an adult and he knew he was dying, he did tell me a few tidbits after all. And when I asked him what was the worst for him at that time, he said that probably the worst thing was not that he had to learn by heart the things he was expected to say at the court but that when he was in a solitary confinement in that custody, they let the water drip on purpose and day and night, day and night, there was only him and dripping water, it was destroying his nerves. Obviously, one cannot really imagine it, but even the interrogations, he never wanted to talk about it, he said, this is nothing for your ears.”

“When mom returned from the court hearing where he was sentenced on that eighteenth and nineteenth March of 1954, she came back home totally drained and she said, ‚that was not my husband at all, that was someone else. He not only looked like a stranger, he also talked such nonsense, things that never happened, that were not true. It was apparent that he had learned it by heart.’”

“The house search and the arrest, that was an awful drama. Not only that they stormed in the house, they also started throwing around all the things there where we slept. They started looking in the beds, they lifted the mattresses, and even today, I can hear mom’s ‘Quietly, please, so that my son doesn’t see it, I hid a hockey stick for my son, a Christmas gift.’ That was a big thing at that time, for a boy to get a hockey stick. And when they start digging in my pram for my dolls, it was me who started to shout: ‘Let go, they are mine. Leave my pram alone!’ Dad’s departure was dramatic as well. We couldn’t even say our goodbyes. They took him away and he only managed to say: ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t done anything, I will be back soon.’ Even though I am 73 nowadays, I can still see this in my mind. I still see this scene. These men were quite crude, I would say, they did not let mom use the bathroom, they went there with her. They took us to school, too. I was in the first grade at that time, and I remember, it was a beautiful and rare event when I came to school, the classes had already started and they knocked the door, my class teacher came, Mr. Rasocha, and he held me in his arms and carried me there and back in the hallway and kept reassuring me: ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, everything will be fine again.’”