Jan Včelař

"He was a family friend. Osvald was an absolutely incredible man, who was just... he's unbelievable, indescribable. Whatever I tell you here, you won't know anything about him at all. He was incredibly educated, incredibly. And of course - he had his own opinion of the regime, very negative, which brought us together. And he was, how to say, a first-class drunkard - unbelievable. He could drink for a week straight on, and everybody was passing out, and I don't know what else, but he was incredibly funny all the time he was drinking. The stories that were from the fifties, which always ended up being somehow related to the regime of the time, were so incredible and there were so many of them that it's impossible to remember. I was lucky enough to spend almost thirty years with him, until his death. I even had the honor of carrying his coffin out of the church afterwards. They say that old Zlín died with Oswald. One thing almost suggests it. We put him in his grave, poured in there some shots, threw in cigarettes - he had loved it all. We were walking away from the grave and there was an incredible rumble behind us. We turned around to see what was happening - and a huge beech tree, maybe two hundred years old, fell without warning, in a complete lack of wind, twenty metres behind us. Which perhaps raises some thoughts that maybe people like that have their own tree. It always seemed so incredible to me that I then thought I was dreaming, that it wasn't true. And recently I was talking to Petr Bartoš about it - and he says, 'It's true, I have it on my phone, I filmed it.' So it's a confirmed, authentic story of Oswald's farewell to life... or to the world."

"I can tell you a nice story, when we were in a dance café together, and because we weren't enjoying it, Jonek said: 'Let's go to my place, I have a bottle of plum brandy, we're wasting our time here.' We went outside, where there was a construction site and a wall made of rolled sheet metal. We started to pee on it, and of course the floodlights came on behind us and we heard, 'Stop!' On the command 'stop' we both of course ran, each in a different direction. They followed me in the car and pushed me into an alcove under the town hall from which there was no escape. They barricaded it, I was inside. I'm thinking: My last resort is to jump over that car. I didn't do that, I fell on the hood. They immediately handcuffed me and dragged me into the car. And what didn't happen - Jonych comes from the park and says: 'Well, well, comrades, what's going on here? You've put my friend's life in danger!' And the commander of the intervention was sitting behind the wheel of the car and he said: 'It's Obdržálek, let him go and let's go!' There were five of them, and they were afraid they were gonna get beat up. That shows the reputation he had in Zlín. They let me go and we went to finish the plum brandy."