Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

some warm water we were happy to be able to use it to have a wash. In Pardubice we went to
a washroom once a week or once in a fortnight, but I never went because it all depended on
which jailor was on. Some of them were bitches and let us soap ourselves and then shouted to
finish up and either turned off the water or turned on the cold. Later on I found out that the
jailors came to watch us there. So I didn’t want to show off. During the whole time in prison,
I was in the washroom only about two times.
What was your experience with guards, both male and female?
In the sewing room, the overseer was Permoník and he was good. For example he saw me
with the nun and he said, “Hrušková, you have been talking to Huberta for the last thirty minutes!”
“I am only explaining the sewing to her, she can’t get her head around it.” He never sent
anybody to report themselves.
Suchá Anka was the one who worked us most. Then there was another one, whom we nicknamed
“Rozšlápnutý kunerol” and she used to be a prostitute. There was also Škrhola. Once
Jáno made me report myself. He was always pushing me to do part time jobs. Then there was
a guy who came from close to where I live now. We used to call him Prince Bayaya. Once the
guards tossed cells and I forgot to hide my English textbook. So I already parted with it. In
a couple of days Bayaya came and told me, “I dumped your English behind the closet,” and it
was really there! I never told anyone about it though.
Could you do anything in your free time?
There was an art club, but later on Potůčková-Taussigová 19 became the organizer. She was
a Communist and I stopped going there because I couldn’t stand it. I had my principles. She
was put in my cell at one stage. It was during the events in Hungary and she was worried that
we would hurt her. She was very lonely in the prison and I have to say that she had a bad
time there. In the “C” section I got to know Nina Svobodová 20 , a writer who wrote poems and
I used to learn them by heart. She had the idea to do theater there. After we finished work,
we used to act short plays and I used to paint masks, paint the faces of the girls who acted,
and did all that needed. We also used to entertain ourselves by listening to the news on the
prison radio every day at seven o’clock. I used to write down the most important news, make
notes and comments, and when the afternoon shift came back from work at ten, I used to read
it for them. Sometimes we could even listen to classical music on the prison radio. However,
the prison radio was on only during the last couple of years of my stay. It was the same with
newspapers and we used to have one newspaper for the whole building. I remember once
we organized a ball. We used to play music in the bathroom, one girl whistled on the comb,
another sang, I played the drum, and the girls danced. Nina Svobodová saw it and liked it very
much. This was still in the winter of 1953. Nina liked it so much that she wrote a program and
the girls dressed up in masks and played historical parts and characters from fairy tales. There
were seven dwarves, Admiral Nelson, a princess with a star on her brow, a Hawaiian dancer,
Hadrian from Rome, and others that I cannot recollect. The musicians were supposed to be
beetles. We made antennas, but mine kept falling off my head because I had shaved my hair
19 Jarmila Taussigová-Potůčková (1914–) – a member of the Communist Party, one of the leading members of the Party
Inspection Committee. She was responsible for political and stalwart activities within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
She was sentenced in a trumped-up trial with Rudolf Slánský in 1952 and released due to amnesty in1960.
20 Nina Svobodová (1902 – 1988) – a Czech writer and journalist engaged in the activities of catholic cultural movement,
worked as an editor for the calendar “Czechoslovak Woman” and cooperated with the weekly “Catholic Woman.” Member
of the People’s Party and sentenced in the Liberec monster-process.
Czechoslovak Political Prisoners 51