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What are your memories and what comes to mind when I mention “domeček“ 4 at Hradčany?
The time I lived there was from April 15th to the beginning of May. When they finished the
investigation and I was transported to holding at Pankrác, that was the worst time in my life.
I was a young kid, having fun with all those things, thinking nothing bad could have happened
to me. Maybe we would get a punishment for the disturbance we caused in the pub, but
everything that happened then, all that investigating of the whole case, and everything that
was rolled onto us, was really cruel. The worst times were of course those, when we were in
the hands of Pergl 5 , the boss of the “domeček.“ The most terrible thing was when they took
us to the general staff at Dejvice. Whether it was in the morning, noon, evening, or at night,
everything depended on how much the investigators were in a mood to talk to us. The worst
was his abuse and treatment in the “domeček.“ The cruelest was a dungeon cell under the
staircase where, once he got the command, put me and the other boys (though I spent the
most time there). It was dark and there was no daylight, no bulb. It was a hard-packed cell, wet
and closed. There a man was like a mouse in a hole adrift until they brought coffee or a piece
of bread, if they gave us something.
Those were horrible things. From the moment we went into the “domeček“ he used violence,
a truncheon, and he had cat o’nine tails with little bullets. He was hitting a person with
that from the front, from the back, many times I fell down and he behaved like a beast that
was being satisfied with that cruelty on us. Of course, his expressions and everything made you
worried about your own life. Many times he led me to the inquisition pointing a gun at me.
I didn’t know whether it was full and whether it was on safety, but he said, “Make another
step and I will shoot you like a dog, you seditious bastard” or “Will you speak or not?” The
worst was when the investigators didn’t get out of me what they wanted. When I couldn’t
confess what they were suspecting of me, then the nights and days were bad. The truth is
that they had to give us some laxative in the coffee, because we were starving. I remember
Tonda Španinger saying once, “If I could catch a bird sitting on the ledge, I would eat it.” It
was that brutal over there. So in that “domeček” there were six of us, six soldiers. The guards
weren’t men, they were beasts, who were our age, maybe a little older. They kept walking in
corridors, kicking the doors and we had to either do push-ups or knee-bends or run away…
briefly, they always wanted to crush us so the investigators would get us in such a state, to be
able to do anything with us. I remember getting to Pergl’s office and I saw various instruments
hanging on the walls…
Once they gave me a metal belt around my head and kept pulling it tighter and tighter, so
I thought it would squash my head. They tied your arms together so you couldn’t defend or
fight back and they did what ever they needed. I really lost thirty kilos (66 pounds) while I was
there. I came in with a weight of eighty kilograms (176 pounds) and when I was left I was
nearly fifty kilos (110 pounds)… they still wanted to prove me guilty, that I was the head ini-
4 “Domeček” (in Czech “little house,” read [domacheck]) – The place in Kapucínská street in Prague – Hradčany, called
“domeček,” became the specific prison for soldiers. It was an institution of the 5th department of the Headquarters or
known also as OBZ. There they mainly kept soldiers, who were forced to testify in certain ways via cruel interrogation
methods.” (source: BÍLEK, J., Nástin vývoje vojenského vězeňství v letech 1945–1953, s. 127.
5 The staff captain František Pergl alias “Dry linden” or “Black penicillin” was “only” a caretaker of the “domeček,” that
means a custodian of the 5th department of Headquarters in Kapucínská street. Pergl was known for his brutality already
because of his service in the prewar Czechoslovakian army. He met every command given to him by investigators to persecute
prisoners and he himself made up various styles of torture.
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