Jiří Juřena

"I will tell you that on the morning of August 21, 1968, I came to work and the first thing was - the cooks reported to me: 'The Russians have joined you, the Russians have occupied you!' We didn't have telephones, when Hitler occupied Jeseník, they left us, my parents, even the telephone, when the comrades came in '48, they took away our telephone, so that we wouldn't accidentally call West Germany, so I didn't have a telephone at home all the time (of course, I had a telephone at work). We couldn't call home to find out what was going on, so my wife and I worked for about two or three more days, I couldn't work that day - the 21st, my wife couldn't work. She was there as a maid, but because she was a trained seamstress, they found out she could sew. In Germany in 1968 it was still quite poor, two sheets made one sheet. She sewed bed linen, sewed for the boss, she had a great job, better than me."

"My father was lucky to be back as a butcher in the kitchen. First he was in Příbram - he was in the pit there - and then when he got to Svornost in Jáchymov, he was, I think, in the kitchen the whole time he was there, so he survived in good health. He was on that uranium for a short time, but those who were there all the time paid with their health. Because they worked there with shovels, hand picking, from what I hear. I went to Jáchymov once, I looked up on the hill where Svornost was - nowadays there are holiday cottages there. I wouldn't have built a hut there - in a place where there were so many tears, crying, pain and dead people. Because there were fatalities, of course, it is practically not talked about even to this day."