Jana Fiedlerová

“[Father talked about it:] In Valdice I stayed in the former Carthusian library and there were seventy of us in two– or three-tiered bunk beds. I got the bed on the bottom, close to washrooms and toilets, but it was the worst bed as for cold temperature. There was a window right by the bed which was kept open all the time for ventilation of this large space, which didn’t help anyway. During the cold autumn in 1958 it was so cold at nights that I thought that I would not be able to endure it for one winter, let alone six. Unlike the others, I had one extra blanket, and sometimes I slept in a winter coat, which had been left behind by the German army after their combat with the USSR, and I had a hat on my head, and still I was not able to get warm and my teeth were chattering due to the cold.”

“They were both arrested. Dad had a flu and although he was ill, he was transported to Náchod to the detention prison, and uncle Karel was arrested straight in his workplace. Then there were five court trials, at first in Náchod, and they were sentenced. Uncle got six years, and dad seven years and each of them was sentenced to paying a penalty of ten thousand crowns, and to the loss of some things – paintings, stamps, books.”