Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

ník that I was injured. In the infirmary they gave me first aid, put stitches in, and on Monday
I was working again although my wound was seven centimeters long and very deep. So this is
just an idea of how they took care of the working people in Jáchymov.
What did you think of the regime change in 1989?
I was happy it was the end. From November 17 I was a little naive when I heard how many
people ended their memberships in the Communist Party. I thought that giving up the membership
would solve everything. I later saw many people who used to be members of the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia and now they are in government or now they have political
functions. We weren’t happy about this at all and we knew that things should be improved.
So we did everything we could to pass the “Lustration Law.” 17 This is our problem even today
because we can see how even this law is not being followed and people are getting around it
in a bad and nasty way. We could not agree when we see ex-secret police and informers sitting
in the main leading positions of the state and elected positions. If we have a public speech because
we are invited by the candidates we always have to make sure these people were never
apart of the party or they didn’t cooperate with the secret police whether it is local, parliament,
or European parliament elections. If they had something to do with the Communists we
would not talk to them and we do not talk to them, at least in Hradec Králové we don’t.
Is there anything you would like to tell to the young generation of today?
Find your goal in life and go and get it until the very last breath. Nothing else. Let your
health and perseverance help you.
Thank you very much for the interview and I wish you a lot of health and success.
Thank you also and I hope young people will understand this because we do it for them. We
don’t want to cry because when we struggled until now, we have to struggle until the end of
our lives, but if we can we want to give them the information because no one will later give it
to them. Such authentic information they can get from us. A film can be very much distorted
and it doesn’t represent reality in its true nature. Some movies were done really well, but they
were missing the thought, the inner feelings that only we can give to it. The feeling of the
family solidarity because the family in civilian life was sometimes affected more then we were
in our minds. They weren’t locked, but they had financial problems and health problems, problems
on how to make a living and if we didn’t have this family solidarity I don’t know whether
we would have survived in prison.
17 “Lustration law” – a name for a set of laws that were discussed or passed in post-communist countries. These laws prohibit
members of the powerful elite and armed brigades during the Communist regime to hold an office, local autonomy
or positions in the military.
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