I
t is night, and the fields near the village are white with
snow. The village is quiet, but not everybody is sleeping.
Eyes are watching the roads and the fields near the village,
because this is Czechoslovakia and the year is 1957. Across
the fields, only half a kilometre away, is the Austrian
border, but the people of Czechoslovakia are not free to
go to Austria. The border guards watch day and night –
and they carry guns.
In a house in the village a man and a woman are talking.
The woman holds a six-month-old baby boy in her arms.