Mgr. Václav Diviš

"Everybody stood up and the chant St. Wenceslas was sung. The organ was playing. The chant reverberated and [the] first and main speaker, the minister, Dr. Josef Plojhar, took the floor. I must say that he could talk. He talked for four hours about what a journey we have come as a society, how it is the right order and all that kind of talk. And that we have actually joined this current, how it is actually socially correct. He listed all the virtues of the health care system when he was at the head of [it]... And so on. He was going through the, - I guess, the church political situation and all that, - he was just touting it, and it went on for four hours. Then there was a big applause. And I [wondered] how it was possible that these priests, - after all, they are intelligent, - applauded it so much... Well, but it was like that. Then there was lunch, of course, delicious. I don't even know if it was sirloin steak... Just a good lunch and dessert. And then there was a break, and during that break, there was walking in the foyer. I went to the toilet, and now I see my classmate Tonda Kolář standing there with some guy in black, talking to him. I thought it was a good friend of his. So I came closer and he immediately addressed [us] in Slovak: 'So how, boys, how do you like it?' Well, you know… ' Speech is silver, silence is golden' - especially back then. But I said, 'Honestly, apart from the Saint Wenceslas chorale and that excellent lunch, it was crap.'"

"I came to about the sixth grade, and the whole class - even though Písek was a communist town - was all white shirts, red scarves. There were about three of us without red scarves. I was sitting in the first or second desk, I don't know now, and the comrade teacher Böhmová said: 'Boy, why aren't you in the Pioneer? And I was always used to saying things truthfully from home, so I said: 'I'm not in the Pioneer because I don't want to be a communist.' [And she said:] 'Oh no, a Pioneer is a model pupil, he studies well, he helps his classmates, you know?' Anyway, I said: 'I don't want to be a pioneer because I don't want to be a unionist and I don't want to be a communist!' So the class ended, the first day, very briefly, and immediately the class teacher, Comrade Teacher Böhm, took me to the headmistress's office: 'So tell me, boy, here, Comrade Headmaster, what you said.' It was kind of my first lesson. So I repeated it. The director just shook his head and then I had it in my papers with a note: only to JZD."