Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

I signed it and that was the end. Then they weren’t okay with it and they called me back in
two weeks. These interrogations were taking place in a prison in Hradec. My cell there was just
a little distance from the interrogation room. It was about ten meters away so I could hear all
the interrogations taking place. At night it was crying or some beating. It wasn’t anything nice
when all of a sudden at night you hear some horrible screaming. First there were some investigators
yelling and then there was the prisoner crying because they were beating him.
There they brought me and told me that I didn’t tell them everything. I denied that and
said I did. So they turned me to the wall and I had to squat and hold my arms out straight.
On my arms they put a ruler and I looked in front of me and on the wall I saw dried blood. So
I thought to myself, “Well this is where all the fun is ending, this is where it gets tough.” This
I repeated to myself about three times. Sometimes they hit me over my arms with that ruler
on the strengthened side, but they didn’t get anything else out of me. So they let me be and
all of sudden in January after the new year they called me up for more investigations again.
There I heard again, “You didn’t tell us everything.” Everything was again the same. Later we
found out that Zbyněk Škaloud started to make things up and let his fantasy go and started
to give them names. I don’t know whether he wanted to please them or what. That meant
that he helped get others arrested including Květa Pilmanová, who was a friend of ours, Radek
Brožový, Karel Havránek, Jirka Pašta, or Bohouš Marek.
Do you know whether he did it on purpose or by mistake?
I really think he did it on purpose. Later I found out that he was a real covert. He liked to
show off and because he talked too much he practically got eight other people arrested.
How did you make it through your trial? Did you have a clue that you could get such a high
sentence?
On March 14th-15th, 1951 we stood in front of the court. It was a monster-process. It was
a public process where they invited all the young students from the schools and all the young
representatives from the factories. It was in a court hall in Hradec and we were judged as
a dangerous and frightening case to society. They were judging us for being scouts, because
all though scouting was prohibited we kept doing it. This was decided right at the beginning
because they were accusing us of high treason, espionage, and I don’t know what else because
there were about six charges that were really serious. They called us, “Group JU1,” and I don’t
know why it was JU, but maybe from Junák Group and the first one. There were nine of us.
Lubka Škaloud got the highest sentence, 14 years. Then there was Zbyněk Škaloud who got 12
years. I got the third highest sentence – 11 years. Then behind in a row was Ctirad Andrýs and
these are all people who are dead now: Ctirad Andrýs 10 years, Radek Brož 9 years, Bohouš
Marek 7 years, Pašta 7 years, Havránek 4 years and Květa Pilmanová, who had her eighteenth
birthday on the day of the trial, got 1 year.
Were your parents present?
My parents were there. There was my mother, my father, and even my girlfriend who I was
dating at that time. This young lady was waiting until my release and we have lived together
up until today.
What happened after your trial?
After the trial things happened really quickly because we stayed in Hradec for a couple of
days and then transferred to Pankrác. That was something like a stay over and from there we
went to Jáchymov, where I arrived sometime around March 25. That means that in about ten
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