Brigita Bulíčková

"There never was anything to buy. We used to queue. Now there are bananas, southern fruit, it just wasn't. When it was Christmas, we had a kilo of oranges and four bananas for the kids. Sometimes it was even under the counter, that the seller would hide it, leave it for maybe just somebody. We used to queue for meat too. We always went to Germany for meat, I had friends there. At the border, we were searched by customs. They didn't want it to be smuggled. Or we'd buy curtains there, that wasn't allowed either. So we tied the curtains around our waists and we didn't have anything. It was a difficult time... it wasn't easy."

"We were guarded. We didn't get together much, but I know they were watching us. I know one time... We lived upstairs and my grandfather lived downstairs. And we had a bell on the door. And my grandfather would go out in the evening and he'd see there were guys out there. And my grandfather knew that my daddy was listening to London. That was at the time, we had the radio on upstairs. It was going boom boom boom, that was the sign of the London broadcast... And grandpa saw the men coming in. They took advantage of the ringing. Grandpa was going out and they were going in. Grandpa was going up the stairs and stomped, Mum looked down the stairs, she was scared. And Dad was sitting by the radio and listened. So Mum rushed home, I remember, I was sitting on the table... And she was gesturing like that to stop Daddy. And Daddy tuned it out."