Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

Where were you sent after a half year at Bory?
From Bory I went to Jáchymov in “B” in the central camp. Then I was sent to camp Mariánská
19 for about two months. In fact, that was a camp for youth, then I went to camp XII. I went
back to Jáchymov in 1952 and I stayed there until the end. Well, not actually until the real end
because in January of 1960 I was again taken to some hearing in Ruzyně. Then I was released
from Ruzyně in 1962, but I was forbidden to be in Prague so for the whole day until 9 o’clock
I was followed by a policeman. I was telling him, just go home, this doesn’t make any sense
at all. No, I have to stay with you. I was walking with him all around Prague. In Na Příkopě
I bought a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of nugat chocolate for my daughter. I got home earlier then
the boys from camp did. My wife had a schoolmate whose husband was in the same camp that
I was and his name was Razík. He wrote in a letter that he would come home and my wife kept
crying that I didn’t write anything, but I came home earlier then he did.
What kind of work did you do at Mariánská?
At Mariánská I mainly worked as a bricklayer and digger, but mainly I was laying brick. Finally
I was even a boss of a little group where eight of us were lawyers and I was giving commands
because I was the only one who knew how to do these things. I am for example able to allocate
and do similar things. I knew how to work with dolomite and I had a soft pencil so there were
eight lawyers, one farmer from Košice, and another forester from Orava, both Slovaks. So this
was our little group. They had plans and we were building.
What did you build?
We built houses in housing developments. At last it was a housing development in Příbram,
the house of culture, then our group built the whole kindergarten, where there were special
round columns made from concrete and we did all that. Our group did the whole building.
They were taking us there from camp Vojna. 20 It happened once for example that we were
about to leave by bus and there was a women standing and waving on the road. The bus driver
stopped and I found out it was my wife (laughing) and it took the commander for the escort
from morning until 3 in the afternoon to figure out whose wife it was because there were five
of us whose name was Pospíšil. So she was standing by the bus, waving to us. She was there
with other wives like Mrazíková and Ploucková, they were running around these camps searching
for us.
How did they end up there?
They got there some how. You know, you will not believe this, but when I was at Bory and
there was stuff running out of my ear my wife made such a commotion that the doctor, Bolský,
who was at Bory as the main doctor managed that I would be taken everyday to the medical
center for treatment. She was not afraid and she insisted on things.
What was your contact with your family like? When did you see your daughter for the first
time?
In the beginning it was every half of year if they really let us have visits. Then it was every
quarter a year, but I’m not sure if we could really call it visits. There was a glass, but no contact
was possible. At Bory I had a prison-mate, Mr. Spálenka, who was a member of the army guard
19 Mariánská – the working camp at the area of Jáchymov.
20 Vojna – used to be prison from 1947 to 1949 for German war prisoners, then in 1949–1951it turned in to a working camp
and finally a camp for political prisoners of the communist regime from 1951 to 1961.
Czechoslovak Political Prisoners 147