Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

a woman like me either. Today I must laugh about it, at that time I was really fighting against
them and one of my lady friends kept telling me, “Please, don’t look at them like that or they
will never let us go home!”
Did you think you would really have to serve all the time or that you might have been released
early?
Nobody really believed at that time, that we would have to serve the whole sentence. Even
once in Litoměřice a prosecutor came there and one after another he called us to him. He asked
each of us when did we think we would go home. We all regretfully said we didn’t know. None
of us knew, if we would have to serve the whole sentence. She could have died the next day.
Were you ever in solitary confinement?
I was once in solitary confinement at a judicial prison because I had sent a scornful letter
about a prison home. For the letter I got a month of correction and out of that once or twice
a week in a darkroom. I was starved and had to sleep on a floor. When I had a normal day
I got water for washing and a broom to sweep. In the evening they gave me a straw mattress
and one blanket. Once I was also given a bucket with water to wash the floor. I didn’t really
want to do it, but finally I managed it. In the afternoon the guards were changing and another
čůzák came and started yelling that I hadn´t washed the floor properly. That was understandable
because I didn´t really give it much effort. I thought about it and then when I was given
another bucket and water, I made the whole floor completely wet. He came at four o’clock and
the floor was still wet, so no smudges were visible on it. He just caught his breath and left. It
was terrible to sleep on a wet floor, but I risked it anyways. It made me so happy to know I took
the wind out of his sails.
What was interesting was, that all čůzáks were driven crazy by my singing. I remember that
when we were in Želiezovce prison, where we worked so hard, we were supposed to put
down a ton of root beet. After a couple of years, my friend wrote me in a letter, how she still
remembered me, how I started singing. She said, if that didn’t happen, she would never have
been able to bear it.
What came next after the court?
After the court I went to Litoměřice prison 8 , where I stayed for nine months. In Litoměřice we
enjoyed it because we went into it with so much fear and worry. Vlasta Charvátová 9 traveled
with us, with another group of people, she shot and wounded one of the guards in Litoměřice.
They wanted to release some of the political prisoners there. Vlasta stayed at the gatehouse
and all of a sudden this person came there and she shot him. She was lucky she got his shoulder.
Vlasta finally went to apologize to him. He was a nice person and forgave her. They gave
us various jobs to do, but all in all, they weren’t successful. For example they wanted us to
strip feathers. The girls would start to work immediately, but I told them, “Girls, have you
gone crazy? Never in my life have I seen how to strip feathers.” So they all stopped and if they
stripped, they were making puffs for slippers, stuffing for their pillows and so on. When čůza
came in the afternoon, I took one piece of feather into my hand and said, “And now, please,
8 Litoměřice – local town prison in Northern Bohemia.
9 Vlasta Charvátová was born on October 19, 1925, studied at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, Charles University in
Prague. After her studies she made a living as an interpreter. She was arrested on August 22, 1949 when she wanted to
help her friends break free out of a prison in Litoměřice. During this action she shot and wounded a guard and the whole
group was arrested. Vlasta herself went through brutal inquisitions and she aborted during that time. Her husband was
sentenced to the death penalty, Vlasta Charvátová was sentenced for life. She was released on December 18, 1963.
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