"I haven't met them (emigrants) much, no, not at all, I haven't had a chance. Because I was absorbed, or I was busy studying, contacting students, so I basically didn't even have a chance to... I wasn't looking for it. I had a little bit of him, when one grows up in communism, there is always fear, and a lot of fear. Because he grows up, aren't you afraid? Why aren't you afraid? What? Sometimes? But from such specific things, right? But no, while those who grew up in communism have, as always, such a feeling that they have to be careful not to argue somewhere, not to tell the truth somewhere, what they think, they have to keep an eye on. This is a difficult thing. So I, when I was in Zurich, always took great care of who I was talking to and how openly. And once, when I... there were two interesting, two funny things. I was once asked to talk about Czechoslovakia, to tell what it looks like there. I'll tell you, I was sweating a little because I was wondering if there was anyone here who would bring it to me. Well, I think I tried to speak honestly, truthfully, but it wasn't... I know I was afraid I was worried about my future."
"He flew away, after much deliberation I flew to Bucharest, Romania, because I thought: Romanians did not participate, they did not come to Prague with their army, they did not come to Czechoslovakia. Somehow they resisted. So I thought, maybe the Romanians are reasonable, so I did… And then I managed, well, they didn't want to sell me a ticket, they didn't want to. But then the girl who worked in Geneva sent me a fax, it was like a phone, they sent me a ticket, and then I went to the airport with it. As I told you, the plane landed; it made a stopover in Hungary. There was check there again, as it was in all communist states. And then we were standing there, it was the whole plane, everyone had to get out of the plane to the building. And there was only one person standing in front of the building, that was my luck, and in civilian clothes, checking our passports. And when it was my turn, fortunately there were about fifty people behind me, when it was my turn, he took the passport, 'And not you.' Like he wanted to detain me. And then the crew came from the plane, and as they hurled a little at him, they said, 'We're late, hurry up, hurry up!' He lost his possible presence of mind. I pulled my green passport out of his armpit like this and I went with the crew, because it was leaving right away. And he was confused, how he did not react, and he still had a lot of people behind him and he was alone. So I left. That's how I got to Geneva."
"In the last grade of high school, I suddenly decided. I was brought up in the Christian faith, we had very nice teaching and it was interesting. But there was atheism around me, and that in me ... it still affected me. Because when something affects you from the outside, you end up succumbing a little. So I wanted to make myself clear and say to myself: I have to go to theology! And I knew that it was... that faculty of theology exists in Prague, that I have to get there to make it clear to me how it is with Christianity. And when I applied, comrade - do you know what a comrade is? It was said then, it was not said, Mr. Director, it was called Comrade Director... it had to be said. The comrade director, he got scared. And he immediately called me and said, 'Please change it, it doesn't make sense what you wrote here, Faculty of Theology, how do you imagine it? Churches will no longer exist. Do you want to completely ruin your own future? ‘And that's how he persuaded me three times. Why did he persuade me? Because he himself was afraid that the comrades high up, who would say to him, 'How is that possible? How do you do your job raising children when one of your students wants to study theology? 'But I resisted him, he called me to the office three times, and I always thought, I didn't like him, I didn't like him as he was a man who was not of good character, so I always said to myself, 'I'm holding you, I'm holding you, you're scared because I want to go study theology.' So I was a little happy about it. "I have the upper hand over him, over this man."
Josef Daniel Beneš was born on July 31, 1941 in Prague. He grew up in Nymburk in the family of an evangelical pastor and in the last year of high school he decided to study theology. After the war, he worked for several months in the mines in the Příbram region and then began his spiritual career in the Podbořansko region. A year later, he went on a study internship to Switzerland, where, among other things, he experienced the August occupation of Czechoslovakia and met his future wife. He returned to Czechoslovakia for a while, but emigrated in 1970 and settled in Switzerland. At first he worked manually, but over time he was offered a place in a local evangelical parish, and in the mid-1980s he also lived in America for more than a year. He went to Czechoslovakia in January 1990 and since then he has often travelled here with his parishioners. He also returned to Prague for six years and worked in the parish of St. Salvator. He still lives in Switzerland and is an active pastor.
