By the time I had my diploma in hand, Mrs. Uhlířová had already told my mother and me that university was effectively closed to me because of my father’s political record. There was no graduation ceremony like an American one. I had the diploma, and the next question was what I was going to do with it.

My father found a way around the problem in his own fashion. He took me to the Ministry of Transportation, where he had an appointment with the Minister himself. I sat in on that meeting, although I could not tell you today exactly what was said. What I remember clearly is the end of it. The minister picked up the telephone, called someone, and arranged for me to meet with the president of AŽD.

I went to that second meeting alone. My father did not come with me. It was at the AŽD site where I would attend the trade school. Mr. Blažek, who taught the electronics program, was definitely in the room. I think the AŽD president was there too, although I would not swear to that now.

They asked me technical questions and mathematics questions. It amounted to an entrance examination or interview. At the end they decided they wanted me in electronics.

That was not what I wanted. I had imagined electrical work that would keep me outdoors. Electronics meant being inside. But I was not in much of a position to negotiate, and electronics was where I went.

I do not remember signing the normal commitment papers that usually went with this kind of training. That became important later.

Only a few months after I started at AŽD, in September 1960, the police came to our apartment at about four in the morning and arrested my father again. The search and the case itself are another story. What matters here is that I went on with AŽD while he was gone.

After his arrest I also had another job at home. Mr. Bureš gave me responsibility for the coal-fired central-heating boiler in our building so that I could help my mother financially. Early every morning I cleaned out the ashes and carried them to the ash cans on the street. I cleaned the burner, started the fire with wood and coal, and loaded enough coal to keep it going through the day. Then I went on with my own day. Around ten o’clock at night I came back and shut the boiler down.

I remember that I was compensated for doing it. I think the amount was credited against our heating bill, although I still have a document that may establish exactly how the arrangement worked. When I eventually entered the army, my mother took over the boiler work. I know she continued doing it; I do not know whether she was required to or whether she did it because the financial benefit still mattered.

The AŽD training lasted about two years and centered on electronics. Later, when I was doing production work, I worked on relay-based railway switching equipment and wiring harnesses.

The production quotas were high. I remember my own production figures being deliberately marked down so the regular workers would not look bad by comparison. I was young, I worked fast, and apparently that created its own problem.

Our boss was a man named Bláha, and people were afraid of him. I heard that he had once been a guard over political prisoners. I never established that myself, and I do not present it as a fact. It is what I heard about him at the time.

I still wanted university. I applied again, this time to Žilina.

Then came the May Day protest in 1962. Bláha made me withdraw my university application. He did not tell me that my father’s background was the reason, and I do not want to put words in his mouth now. My own interpretation was that my background and the protest had made me politically suspect to him.

His stated position was that I had an obligation to remain at AŽD because they had trained me. I argued that I did not remember ever signing the normal papers that would have bound me to stay. It made no difference. He made me withdraw the application.

Before I entered the army, I asked Bláha for one month off without pay. He said no way. Then he went on vacation.

While he was away, I told either Ivan or the manager who was covering for him that I was resigning. I do not remember anymore which one of them it was. Resigning was considered something extraordinary, almost unheard of, at that time.

I was told that I could not resign because before I entered the AŽD trade school I had supposedly signed an agreement obligating me to remain employed there. I said that I had never signed such an agreement, and I challenged them to produce it. They could not find one. My own understanding is that this was because my entry into AŽD had been arranged unusually, through the Minister of Transportation, rather than through the normal process, but that is only my understanding of why, not something I can point to in any surviving document.

I was called into the AŽD president’s office. He was shocked that I wanted to resign and asked me why. I explained that I wanted one month of unpaid vacation before entering the army, and that Bláha had refused it. He seemed relieved that this was all it was, and he approved the month of unpaid leave.

I took the month off.

When I came back, Bláha was screaming at me at the top of his lungs from the moment I walked in, about my having gone around him and about my being a bad worker who was producing below quota. I had to yell back at him to get through to him. I told him that the records had been falsified, that I was actually producing about 140 to 150 percent of quota, but that because I was still a trade-school worker, recording my real production would have made the regular workers look bad by comparison.

Bláha called Ivan, my supervisor, and asked him whether what I had said was true. Ivan said yes.

Bláha shut up.

A few days later, I had to leave for the army.