Jan Hraběta

"I was interrogated in Ruzyně once and let me tell you, I am no hero and I was not feeling well, just walking up those stairs and then... It was because of the Charter. I was supposed to bring the Charter to work at Xaverov but, thank God, I didn't. Andrej Krob promised to bring me the Charter because my fellow drivers - I was a driver at the time - were interested in the Charter. I said I'd bring it tomorrow. Luckily, Andrej didn't make it. I didn't have the Charter with me. I came to work and the head driver said, 'The cops are waiting for you in Počernice. If you've got something, throw it away.' I didn't know anything; it transpired later. I went there, they put me in a Tatra 603, it died, so we switched to a Volga, and we drove to Dejvice. I was scared they would come to our home, because my mother would shake every time the doorbell rang since then. Luckily, we drove to Vítězné square and went to Ruzyně. Then I got out. I was taken away by one of the two guys who drove me, and he said, 'Watch out. Tell the absolute truth and tell everything, or you'll end up here.' A line of eight convicts in handcuffs walked by. I sat down in an office a little bigger than your studio, and this guy came wearing a homespun sweater. Captain Kohl. 'Come on, Mr Hraběta, what can you tell us about the Charter? You said someone would bring it to you, didn't you?' I thought I'd keep Andrej out of it, so I said, 'Well Mr. Havel promised to bring it but he didn't.'"

"We moved to Prague and my father worked for the Swiss company Ciba making pharmaceuticals and dyes. Then, because he was working for a Western company, they arrested him for subverting the republic. He was sentenced to 11 years but served three years, and only because there was a retrial and Gottwald and Stalin died. There was a thaw and dad got three years only because he had already been illegally detained for three years under the communists. He wasn't convicted. He was in pre-trial detention, so he got three years for subversion just so they didn't have to somehow compensate pre-trial detention. My dad went from Ciba and when he was in detention he worked in the mines in a labor camp in Oslavany. He spent his pre-trial detention of three years in the mines in Oslavany. He wasn't digging coal but did special work, trenches, reinforcements and stuff. When he was released, what he was supposed to do? He went on to work in the mines in Kladno. He just worked in the mines for another couple of years."