Dr. Ing. Alois Křišťan , Th.D.

“Then we somehow got to Salzburg, and Pavel Kadlečík kept insisting that we should have Mass somewhere. And I was like, ‘Where and how…?’ And he said, ‘In some church.’ And he wanted it quite vehemently. My sister and brother-in-law were there too, and a few people knew that we were priests. And I said, 'Well, if we have to, then in a church.' And he was so excited, he said, 'Let's go somewhere and say we're secret priests.' And I said, 'Here in a foreign country, I'm going to tell someone I'm a secret priest...? They'll lock us up!‘ So I was quite afraid, but then he convinced me. I knew a little more German than he did, so I said, ‘Okay, but let's go to a religious church, one of those orders that also has secret members in our country, they'll understand. So we found some Franciscans in Salzburg. So we went to the Franciscans and said we wanted to have a Mass for a few people at a side altar, not even for those from the bus, just for a few people. And now, who are we...? We said, 'We're coming from a pilgrimage, we're religious, but we're not public priests, we're Salesians.' And now he was like, okay, but he wanted to see some papers, otherwise he wouldn't let us in. Well, we didn't have any papers. A passport? I said, 'I'm not showing my passport.' So he was stunned. I said we wanted to go in, but I wouldn't show anyone my passport. So he left and went to see some superior. The superior came and asked some questions. He probably understood how things worked in Czechoslovakia, so he said, ‘Of course you can, and so on...’ But not in a side chapel, but at the main altar. And that we should come at five. So we came at five, both of us, in our robes... So we went there. I said, 'This is going to get us in trouble.' I was shaking. So we started the Mass at the main altar, and I saw from the main altar that the doors opened and people from another bus came in, but I knew them from Vršovice. They stood there and I was thinking, ‘There’s Pavel Boháč, Dr. Zdeněk Boháč is there too, and these guys too...’ people who knew me. I tried to hide under my stole, but it was useless. So I thought to myself, 'Now everyone will find out that I'm a secret priest.' Well, that was another experience from Anežka.“

“There was a Catholic scout group, which was banned in the 1950s. The guy who ran it, Jan Janoušek, was sent to prison for it, and in 1968 they revived it. Jan Janoušek, known as 'Janek', revived the Catholic scout group there. I didn't get involved in it yet, I wasn't that close to it yet, we had to go to our family estates in Milotice, in Vysočina. And then, when they saw that the scouts were going to be shut down by the communists in 1971, I don't know the exact year, they founded a hiking club, headed by Lída Reichlová, who is still alive. She was the leader of the club, and the kids, as I found out later, had double registration without even knowing it. In the scout troop and here at the same time. And then they banned the scouts. So the scouts were banned, Janek officially left everything, and Lída Reichlová officially continued with her hiking club under the guise of hiking, and basically carried on as the former scout troop. And I met these kids, who had gone through the cubs and were now at the level of junior scouts, at religion class, and they went on various events and trips, so I joined them and joined the hiking club. And that was also important for me – even for my Christian life."

"Grandfather, my father's father in Milotičky, was labeled the biggest kulak in the village, so when they needed to destroy it there, they confiscated his farm. The others didn't have to, they just had to hand it over and were allowed to stay there, but my grandfather had to move out. However, he was able to stay in the village because the people there knew each other and liked each other, so no one held anything against him. So he had to move out of the farm. I was born in 1956, so I didn't experience it, but there was some trauma in the family. Because, at least according to what our parents said, an offer came: 'Give it to the collective farm,' but of course Grandpa didn't give it away, why would he? So then they were forced to supply some things for deliveries, they were only allowed to thresh at night, they weren't allowed to employ anyone... So, in order to keep the farm, our relatives from Prague would come and visit, and they all tried their best, and it's so drastic that they actually thought that if they tried hard enough, they could keep it. And the communists had that screw, so they tightened it a little bit, and they tried again, sweating blood, and they tightened it again a little, until they forced them to hand it over. So I guess that affected me too, like this family narrative, as they say today, towards communism and the socialist system."