Věra Pošelužná

"There was a big hospital here, a lung hospital, I don't know if you know it. It was very famous in the First Republic, they treated tuberculosis here a lot. And in 1971 the Soviets took it over and made it a Soviet hospital. The staff got fired, the doctors that were there, they had to find a place somewhere else and Russian soldiers were treated there. They left in 1991, when they were still here for those twenty years, their wives used to go shopping in Kosteliec, and those were full [bags], they bought everything in the shops. We came to the shop and there was nothing there, because they bought it all up, they were carrying full bags. That was the crazy thing. So then when they were supposed to leave in 1991, before they left they bought up everything that was available, and so I didn't hear that, but friends said that, that the soldiers said, we'll be back. So it was kind of scary."

"We were scared too, we are, I wasn't brave. And even my parents what they lived through, my dad - it was before I was born that he was locked up, but he had that fear in him. Because he was limprisoned because he was a professional soldier. It was sometime in 1949 when they handed out, when he came to work, they handed out party registration forms and sign and turn in. And a couple of them didn't sign and he came home that time and he said, and he was still laughing and he said, they're going to arrest us for not signing. Well, they searched his home, and they found something from work, some forms or some papers, absolutely probably harmless, but by taking it home they accused him of revealing military secrets and he was in prison for two years. So there was some fear in him after that, and I guess the whole family after that. So there wasn't much courage in me."