Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

a moment when I turned around there would be knocking at the door again. You had to jump
up and report your presence once again. The arms had to be out because it was happening that
someone would want to cut their wrists. We had to lie on our backs, the bulb was lit above our
heads, but people still fell asleep because of the tiredness.
Once I was invited by an investigator and I had to stand up by the wall. At that time there
was paper money and I had to keep my arms behind my back holding the paper bill by my nose
on the wall. The paper money fell down, I got such a slap from the back that my nose broke
against the wall. They were making fun of it. Sometimes they would let you sit in the corner
and they would threaten you with a saber, but the worst were the psychological forces. When
he started telling me that they will arrest my wife or even that she is arrested and that the kid
is somewhere away. He told me, “What do you think you can do to us? Out of you we will make
corpses, your wives will become whores, and your children will become orphans, and we will
bring them up that they will never even come and look at your grave.”
What confession did they want to hear? What exactly was their goal?
They wanted to hear what I told my friend. I said, “From me he didn’t want to hear anything.”
When I told him, he wouldn’t get anything out of me and they said that they had
information from other places. I was in Klatovy for 2 weeks maybe 3 weeks and then they put
me in a car again and took me to Pankrác 8 . In the morning they woke me up, I had to take my
clothes off, cross the cell to another side, take one step to the back, and lean against the wall.
It got dusty down there and dusty in my armpits. They were spraying us with DDT. It was like
an enema. It stunk and it was burning. I came back to the cell and there was a guy waiting for
me. When I came he said, “Hey, I will be washing you down.” So I had to wash in the toilet. In
Pánkrac we washed our dishes in the toilet and drank water from the toilet because there was
nothing else. There I stayed for about five weeks, I don’t know how long. Then they took us in
an “Anton” 9 to Cheb. They took eight or nine of us.
So did you confess to anything?
No, there was nothing I could confess to. There was a trial and of course my defendant was
doing a great job. He spoke to the court and the court said that it knew he (the lawyer) has got
me as a court appointed lawyer. It was also said that the court will not look at the defense with
sympathy because it’s their duty not to and that the court will be strict, but righteous according
to my age. That was it. The prosecuting attorney made a real bad man out of me such as
a drunkard and an irresponsible person. I was also psychologically influenced when I was a kid
because I was brought up in a monastery.
When were you sentenced?
I had a trial in October 1952. I got eighteen years of so-called heavy prison and for ten years
they took away my civil liberties and all my property was confiscated. The National Senate in
Cheb came to the opinion that out of my position I could give out the most important information
for the country’s defense and that is why they sentenced me to eighteen years of heavy
prison. They also suggested the death penalty so I could be happy I got eighteen years. I didn’t
believe though that the regime would stay in this country for another forty years. I gave it five,
a maximum of six years.
8 Pankrác – a prison in Prague.
9 “Anton” – a closed police van for transport of prisoners.
134