Vladimír Trlida

“We all had the same black and grey backpacks. We would take everything printed in the country to the Poles and they would secure some materials for us. Various testimonies and letters created by people in exile, I think I even delivered a computer with a printer from them. We would just swap the backpacks and go our own ways.”

“It was winter and there was a lot of snow. Mirek (Odložil – author's note) and I climbed to the top, we had a chat with the Poles and then went back to the car. We had two Poles with us, they walked behind us. Somebody snitched on us and after we walked for about three hundred metres these guys in unmarked uniforms, you couldn't tell if they were army or what kind of force, started jumping out from behind the snow. They had automatic rifles and began getting their guns ready. It was not very pleasant. Who knows how long they had been there, with their fingers all frozen. What if somebody's finger slipped… The Poles were walking a couple of tens of metres behind us. They had to know that they would be behind us because they waited for them. And so they picked us up. I was carrying my backpack and the moment they pulled out those guns it slid off my back. I mean, it wasn't my backpack, anyway. They wanted me to pick it up so I said it wasn't mine and that I wasn't going to pick it up. They took us to a station in Javorník and some State Security Major was interrogating me. It was one day after the revolution but we knew nothing about what was going on in Prague. Only the State Security knew. I had never seen an interrogation like that. Some State Security Major was interrogating me. I can't remember any names of course. The interrogation was very forthcoming. Obviously I refused to talk, just like during any other interrogation. I found it suspicious, because he was asking me strange questions. He asked me about what I thought, if things turned around, what were the Sudeten residents going to do here.”