Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

What were you sentenced for then?
At that time there didn’t exist a written sentence, that means they wrote it down, but it
stayed only in my records with no public notification. The verdict was in much later, after the
hearing with Honc. I got paragraph 1, high treason and paragraph 5, espionage 13 . The other
reason for being sentenced was because I was a high state official. I knew many people in government
since I was a counselor in government. They tried to prove that I played tennis with
Mayor Krtek, who was the head of espionage of Czech Republic and then later of the whole of
Europe. They didn’t like that I was also meeting diplomats from the West. I got twenty years.
The original suggestion was a rope, but that didn’t happen.
What ran through your mind when you heard the verdict?
I thought I was being put in cold storage for a while, but all in all I was quite calm.
What happened after the trial and what did they do with you next?
After this trial I was transferred to Bory 14 . There I was put in a cell called Waldes. From there,
I don’t know why, but I was transferred to the book workshop after half a year. That was wonderful.
We had our own stove there so we could warm up the place and we had our own little
room there as well. Three of us were state prisoners 15 and the rest were vindictive prisoners 16 .
The guards didn’t order us around and we lived quite peacefully.
Do you remember any important prison-mates from Bory?
When I was in “B” I slept on one bed with a Mr. Podsedník, the ex-mayor of Brno. Then there
was also Dr. Cahín and two pilots, Mikš, who was also called Julíšek, and Nový. Julíšek was shot
and up until now he still has a bullet in his shoulder. The guy named Nový crashed his plane and
broke his leg. So these two guys were pilots. Then there was Cirda Musil, who used to represent
the country in cross country skiing and who I had met before when I went skiing in Vysočina.
This guy was later killed in Canada. He escaped from Jihlava and he got abroad, from there he
traveled to Canada, and there he was killed by his girlfriend’s brother who was Yugoslavian.
Do you remember Gusta Bubník?
Yeah, I know him from Bory and from labor camp XII. He was on XII, but he was going down
underneath and I was just a worker upstairs or above the mines.
Do you also remember Pravomil Reichl 17 ?
I know Pravomil Reichl very well because I was with him in the same cell. I remember him
once talking through the window with another soldier from the army and he was caught.
Brabec 18 beat him with a short whip and they sent him into solitary confinement. Pravomil
Reichl was missing a piece of meat and he was shot. He was a good boy. He slept in the corner
of “B” in number 8.
13 The law 231/48 Sb. according to which most of the political prisoners in Czechoslovakia were sentenced in a massive way.
14 The prison Plzeň – Bory is situated in the western part of Bohemia, during the communist era it was one of the strictest
prisons, where mainly political prisoners were placed.
15 State prisoners = political prisoners.
16 Vindictive prisoners – prisoners sentenced on a basis of “vindictive decrees” for cooperation and collaboration with
Nazi Germany. A state prisoner was also called a political prisoner, then there was a category of criminal prisoners.
17 Pravomil Reichl was the legendary officer of the Czechoslovakian army who went through the Gulag (a work camp
in U.S.S.R.), fights at Dukla, and brain death. He went through the political processes and prisons in Czechoslovakia, he
escaped from Leopoldov, emigrated, and lived to see the democratic Czech Republic.
18 The guard Brabec was especially known for his brutality towards prisoners.
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