Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

a place called “járek,” where the disabled worked with us. We went to work by a small handcar
and I worked in the tobacco gang. It used to be very hot there.
You said that you worked together with the disabled?
Yes, poor souls! They were mentally disabled and if you saw how they were treated! They
were treated like slaves. They got up in the morning just like us and they got black slop. They
got a piece of bread and went out to work into the scorching sun and each of them got a line
of beetroot to hoe. A supervisor was following them, with a long stick in his hand, watching
how everybody worked. If one of them didn’t do the hoeing properly, the supervisor took the
stick and the disabled had to go back. They were so scared of the supervisors, poor souls! It was
unbelievably drastic. This was how socialism looked like.
What was the arrival in Želiezovce like?
When we came to Želiezovce, it was snowing hard and the weather was freezing cold.
I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. It was snowing and raining and we were walking through
corn fields. All was wet. We came to our quarter and there was a small stove to be shared by 40
people. In the morning our clothes were still wet as we were putting them on. It was slavery!
We got a small bucket of coal, but ended up using corn for fuel anyway. The accommodation
was awful because there were bedbugs all over the place and we had to kill them every night.
We lived in sheepfolds, they were kind of wooden houses. There were large rooms that slept
about 40 people and each of us had a bunk bed. There were normal houses as well. In one of
the stone houses nuns and prostitutes lived.
Can you remember the hepatitis epidemics?
First there was a typhus epidemic in Želiezovce. They were supposed to give us vaccination
and I was afraid of it. I remembered my father who was telling me that they got typhus vaccination
during the war as well, but he was telling me, “I always squeezed it and there was
a squirt of blood, but I was able to bear the vaccine better than the others.” The doctors came
first and they were supposed to vaccinate us, but then they only left the vaccines behind and
left. One ampoule was supposed to be for two or three prisoners. The woman who gave us the
injections was not a doctor at all, she was a kind of backstreet abortionist. There was a line-up
and I came forward and said, “Officer, I would like to report to the chief officer because of the
way you give us the vaccination here, we don’t even give it to our pigs at home.” I came to see
the chief officer, we had to report ourselves like soldiers do, “Prisoner number such and such
reports arrival.” I told him I was not going to get the vaccination. He replied, “OK, I will tell the
doctor to boil the needle and use a new ampoule for you.” I was on cloud nine because I expected
he would send me to a correction cell. As soon as she gave me the injection I squeezed
the spot. Later, doctors from Pankrác arrived and said it wasn’t typhus but hepatitis. We were
to get gamaglobulin and again they had to boil the needle for me and open a new ampoule.
There were prostitutes and who knew what kind of diseases they could have had.
In Želiezovce did you get to know for example about the Hungarian uprising?
Well, once when we were on our way to work and we heard distant sounds of shooting. It
was close to the Hungarian border. The supervisors told us to ignore it because it was from
the marble mines. However, we knew already that it was the revolution in Hungary. The following
day, when we were going to work, there were soldiers everywhere. We arrived at the
yard, lined up, and got divided into the state and the regional prisoners. We, the state prisoners,
were put in quarantine and weren’t allowed out anymore. We were issued a three-liter
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