Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

at a trade school to teacher penmanship. Doctor’s recommended that I get back to the radioactivity
for a while and slowly work my way out of it so I listened to them. They didn’t let me
go down into the shafts anymore because I was seriously ill, but I was bravely going down
until May.
What do you think about Charter 77, dissidents, and the year 1989 15 ?
Well my opinion is that they didn’t really want Communism to disappear. They wanted Communists
to meet the promises they made in Helsinki. Why didn’t they make dissidents out of
us? Why did they execute and make criminals out of us. They executed 240 people, they beat to
death many of them, many of them died in mines, many on the borders, no one knows exactly
today. There are many people who are reported missing, but somewhere there bones lie, and
these people were dissidents. To Rovnost (Equality) they once brought Goldstücker 16 , Hromádka
and Láďa – the guy who was a member of the Central Committee. Goldstücker was punched
at Rovnost camp really hard and they beat him like a horse. Do you know why? Because he was
giving a statement in the UN that we don’t have barbed wires here.
How do you as a political prisoner look at modern history? What would be the easiest way
to give this to the young generation and inform them?
Tell them the truth. It’s necessary to speak about things. Freedom doesn’t mean I can do everything
I want. Freedom means responsibility so the things wouldn’t fall apart. It means toleration.
I think this, I don’t care who is communist today, that is his own business as long as you
don’t do any harm to others. Or if someone believes and has faith it’s his own business or he
can be in a political party that he likes. I imagine that in this government we have the positions
for the reason so no harm is done to the nation. The opposition and coalition must agree on
things that would benefit the whole country. When the Germans were able to de-Nazify their
offices why weren’t we able to do it here?
What comes to mind when I say Jáchymov?
Jáchymov. One would rather forget about bad things. Or you do not forget about it, but you
stop thinking about it. It is like if someone does something bad to you, you forgive, but you
do not forget. That’s it, to Jáchymov, I think. When you say Jáchymov the labor camps don’t
come into my head. When people speak about them, I can think about everything, but now
like this they don’t come into my head.
After you were released did you ever meet any of your guards, court prosecutors, or someone
who influenced your life’s destiny for such a while?
Yes, I met them. For example I applied for rehabilitation in 1969. The lady prosecutor took
it and said, “Well yeah, that’s clear.” She gave me my charge asking me whether I read it and
I said I didn’t. So she asked why did you sign it? I just said I had to. If I wouldn’t it would have
been bad for me. So everything looked all right. At the time I got the invitation to one of the
last court hearings. I went to Plzeň, to the regional court and there was sitting the same judge
15 The phenomenons of modern Czechoslovakian history that are directly connected with the fall of the Communist regime
in November 1989.
16 Eduard Goldstücker (1913–2000) was a Slovakian Germanophile and interpreter. After the German occupation in 1939
he had to emigrate from the country because his origins were Jewish. He worked for the Czechoslovak government in
exile in London. In 1948 he was a Czechoslovakian ambassador to Israel, but in 1953 he fell victim to the political purge
and he was in prison for three and half years. In 1955 he was rehabilitated and started his career as a teacher at Charles
University in Prague. He studied and translated German-Jewish authors of the 20th century. In 1960´s he became a member
of the National Assembly. In 1968 he sharply criticized the invasion of the Soviet army and had to emigrate. He left to
the U.K. where he taught German literature. In 1990 he returned to his native country.
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