Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

there were tons of Communists. In our house there were also some people who had a daughter
and a son, plus or minus, who were my age. We didn’t want to meet them. In short, when the
year 1948 came, I didn’t want it.
Why were you arrested?
In the year 1948 there were elections and someone threw into our mailbox leaflets, on which
was written, “Vote with white ballots.” At that time I didn’t have any thing better to do than
to bring it to work. The stance written was that people shouldn’t vote, but just throw in just
white ballots. I liked the idea at that time and I gave it to others to read. I never thought, that
it could have such consequences. Firstly, I didn’t think someone could be arrested for leaflets.
At the court I also told them that during the First Czechoslovakian Republic there was the slogan,
“Vote for one, don’t vote for five” and nobody was arrested. So I didn’t think this could
be a crime. Of course we were gripped by those leaflets and started to copy them. Someone
denounced it of course, until the President of the Chamber of Commerce found out about it
and called the secret police on us. It was enormously quick.
How did your arrest look like?
Mr. Jech called the secret police on us. They came and took us to Bartolomějská street No.
4. I was arrested May 29th-30th in 1948. What was happening at number four at that time,
nobody can imagine. We were crammed into horrible dark prison cells. In the corner there
was a little wooden closet, which I thought, was a telephone booth. It was a metal or iron
toilet. For a walk we went out onto a little square, three by three meters. From number four
they transferred me to Pankrác prison, where I stayed for 21 months. There I was with various
people. I remember the arrival to Pankrác very well. Before checking-in they made me stand
by a wall. From each side there were Gypsy women. They were all dirty and later I found out it
was from blood. Then they took me to my cell. That was also magical because from the prison
square there was a big iron gate and me, how I was rushing in, I didn’t think that it would be
connected underneath. I stumbled and flew into the square, I almost spread like a frog on the
floor. That was a beautiful entrée…
How did it look like at Pankrác 6 ?
At Pankrác I quite liked it, I didn’t miss any work. Girls were advising me to sign in for a job,
so at the beginning they put me to a place where they made bags. From there I was kicked
out because I didn’t get along with a “čůzák“ 7 (read [chou:sack]; a slang word from prison
for a gaurd, in Czech language it comes from the word „bitch“). After that I was in laundry,
in printing works, and finally we ended up in a dispatch cell. That was an “eincell” (a cell for
one person), but there were seven of us in there. We were supposed to make hemp rope. We
blocked a toilet with the rope twice. Once we made a ball, which I took out afterwards and
threw it behind the old, non-functioning printing works. On the next day, we had a walk.
When we got out to the square I thought I would go nuts. One of the dogs that was running
around was playing with it. Anyways, I finally threw a second ball there as well because I had
nothing to do with it. Then we were supposed to glue flags together in the cell. That was also
charming because they gave us a box of flags and skewers and told us to glue. As they didn’t
give us any glue, we concluded we couldn’t do anything. So we put everything under a bed.
6 Pankrác – one of the biggest and well known prison in Prague.
7 A guard.
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