Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

scouts’ ideology for which we were in prison. I was also putting pictures into plexiglass. I put in
photographs of my family, which I later sent home. My sister still has one picture like that. We
were also carving various objects from bones or we were making little hearts from plexiglass
and various other things. I made tons of things for my prison mates. It was a hobby to relax
and it was also a petty clockmaker’s job because everything was so tiny and small. For example,
there would be a little cross preserved in one of those hearts or someone would chew bread
and then he would make sandals out of it and a sleigh. There were various ideas on what to
do or create. I still have a lighter that the “Mukls” made.
When you heard your sentence that you were potentially going to prison for eleven years
what helped you struggle through that time when you didn’t know that you could go home
in 1955?
(Light laugh) It was our general belief that we would not sit there, hoping that something
would happen and all that we started in this world would not leave, especially after the execution
of Dr. Horáková 15 or General Píka 16 . We didn’t trust that this would be a permanent
state, how it lasted for forty years as it did. This gave us energy and we were hoping that we
would get out earlier and we really finally didn’t sit for the whole sentence. Many people were
released on probation although they were in prison for ten or thirteen years. Yet, the people
with fifteen or twenty years were a couple people who sat their sentence to the end.
How did your rehabilitation and compensation turn out?
Right in 1989 we established the Confederation of Political Prisoners. I had first-hand information
because I was one of the founding members and the head of one of the branch offices.
When they started talking about rehabilitation in 1990 we straight away got ready everything
for rehabilitation and we informed our members of the confederation and offices in Hradec
about the conditions of rehabilitation. There were about 350 people. In Hradec everything
went all right. I personally got all the compensation that I was supposed to get.
What comes to mind when you hear the name Jáchymov?
I have a chill running down my back. Everything is fixed in my head. Sometimes it unfortunately
happens to me that I have a dream or that I am in a prison in Jáchymov. It’s an overwhelming
experience that I can not erase from my memory and subconsciousness. Especially
now, for example, when I am finding out that one of my friends who I had there has leukemia
and is practically fighting with death. These are the red threads that line my memory. He used
to be a young person, but today he is written off because he has leukemia from the radioactivity.
Did you also leave with some permanent health problems or were you so lucky that it went
around you?
I had a few smaller injuries, broken fingers and ripped off nails. That often happened at
the work place in “L” when we were handling barrels. Then I had two injuries in Nikolaj, one
of them was really quite a misery. I was carrying something and then the ladder broke from
underneath me and I fell down. I flew and landed on my back four meters below and I cut my
elbow and twisted my shoulder. I crawled down the tower and there I gave a message for Hus-
15 JUDr. Milada Horáková (1901 – 1950) was a Czech politician, executed during the communist political processes in the
fifties, for putative conspiracy and high treason.
16 General Heliodor Píka (1887–1949) was a Czechoslovakian soldier and legionare, important representative of the anti-
nazi revolt abroad and he has a victim of communist terror.
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