Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

technicians didn’t know how to do. It was a good job, although it was dangerous. Meanwhile,
my brother who was a docent of math at the University in Brno, was locked up by the Gestapo.
He was locked up, sentenced, and died a little while after being released from prison.
Why was your brother sentenced?
He was sentenced for Hochverrat, which means high treason because he was a member of
a resistance group. My uncle, Doctor Vilém Pospíšil, who was the ex-governor of the national
bank came to Brno for a visit. He looked into what I was doing and he gave me recommendations
for a job at the newly established labor office where I was supposed to specialize in different
things, but things I should normally do. Two months after that my uncle was visited by
the Gestapo in Brno and after that visit he was found dead in his apartment.
What year was that in?
That was in 1941. I was at the office working in the welfare department at the so called
Familienhilfe and the Sondenhilfe. At these departments I stayed almost to the end and in the
last three months the Gestapo was interested in me, but it wasn’t that hot because they had
other work to do as well. There were trenches all over Brno since it was in danger of a direct
attack from the Russian Army. The government in exile came back from London 2 and they were
going through Brno and also Dr. Stránský came back. He was teaching us criminal law at the
Law Faculty. Since he knew me and he knew I was interested in politics, he asked me to join his
cabinet. At first he was a Minister of Justice and then he went to the top level of government
as a Deputy Chairman. At that time I was interested in a real job so I accepted his offer and
started January 2, 1946 at the top level of government and got into his cabinet. In his cabinet
I was working on national economic policy and for Minister Stránský I was preparing a package
of potential laws that were being considered at that time. There I worked until the elections
in 1946. After elections Minister Stránský switched to the Department of Education and I went
there as his secretary. I stayed at the Department of Education until that infamous February.
You can see well that I’m not any giant and I don’t look like I would like to fight, but I was
dragged outside by seven guys holding submachine guns.
When did that happen?
That was February 24, 1948. I probably had to get a really bad record in the evidence list for
the Communist party, because from that time on I was unemployed. I have a package of applications
where I was asking to be employed by various ministries and also the private sector,
but I always got an answer saying, “The working class does not consider you as a reliable person.”
In better cases they answered the position has already been filled and since I had a lot of
time I was doing various things. I was mainly interested in border crossing and the checkpoints
because Minister Stránský was getting ready to escape. So I started organizing his escape and
I was really successful at this. With Minister Stránský we said our goodbyes at the summerhouse,
Hvězda, in July 1948. There he got into a van as a worker and he crossed the border near
Karlovy Vary the same day. His family went to the West before he did.
Could you remember anything in detail about the organization concerning the escape? How
did you prepare it?
A custom officer named Snopek helped us during that. Also, a businessman from Prague,
who was selling carpets was in the process. His name was Losenický and he was able to go
2 Government in exile – established in July 9th by the Czechoslovakian National Commission.
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