Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

tell me, what shall I do with this feather?” She took it and from one side ripped it as well from
the other and gave me the feather in one hand and the quill in the other. The girls couldn’t
stop laughing. After nine months, I went to Znojmo. That was also magical because they transported
us in an “anton,” 10 whose door didn’t work and kept opening. We knocked on the
driver’s and čůzák’s doors twice. Twice the driver came to close it and on the third time he said
we would have to hold it. So we held our door until we were in Znojmo.
You didn’t think you would run away?
No, because when you have parents at home, you are thinking that you wouldn’t help them
with this at all. I had to leave all this on the side, it wasn’t possible. Imagine this, in Znojmo
we had another big laugh. There was a head guard, some Márinka and she read out loud our
names from the list. One girl’s name was Ordová-Cvetkovičová. Mirka always put her hand
up twice for this name. But then, when the head wanted to change us into other clothes, she
counted us and it didn’t match. There were ten of us and she had 11 names on her list. For god’s
sake, she couldn’t figure it out. We kept saying, “Mirka, tell her you have got two names,”
but she had such a sense of humor she kept putting her hand up for both names. Finally, we
made her say it. That time we had fun. In jail, there were moments when one had fun and
sometimes it was just the opposite and it was difficult. So in Litoměřice and Znojmo I was in
normal prison cells. I didn’t get to work anywhere and was just in the prison. Then I went to
Česká Lípa prison 11 . In Česká Lípa it was good because the head guard of the prison was quite
human. From there I went to Liberec, where I stayed for a couple days and from this prison they
divided us into different commandos and I got to Chrastava, like I already mentioned to you.
We had really awful food there because one mistress wanted to save money and kept telling
us that we would get everything back for Christmas. So she was giving us boiled pork all the
time. I won’t eat boiled pork, even if I was standing underneath the gallows. I will rather tell an
executioner, ”Please, hang me up already and the boiled pork will be eaten by a dog.” I tried
it warm, cold, salted, with mustard, but when I see boiled pork, I have nausea. Then it showed
up that she stole everything she could and we didn’t have anything at Christmas. In jail they
were stealing themselves. I had a violet lipstick and when I was in Litoměřice, one čůza had
the same one. Then they didn’t give me my purse back of course so I found out, she must have
simply took it. From this commando, I went to Pardubice. At that time the prison in Pardubice
was starting and was supposed to be a brig for the highest corrections. At the beginning there
were only political prisoners. There were sewing places and a laundry, we went to work also in
the garden. That was so fine, although hazing was also quite bad there. There I stayed about
two years. Then I went to Želiezovce.
Dagmar Šimková also writes about Želiezovce prison, could you also tell me a bit about it?
When Dagmar Kočová was narrating about that place once to me, because she was there,
I couldn’t imagine it. The truth is that there were large pieces of land. For example – you saw
a little village on the horizon and you thought it was a couple of steps away, but it took half
a day to get there. That was just terrible, especially for me, who never tried to excel anyway in
speed. Girls were always in the front and I was still trudging somewhere in the middle. Lastly
it all ended because I strained my backbone. From that time I was suffering from the spine for
10 “Anton” – a closed police van for transport of prisoners.
11 Česká Lípa – another local town prison in Northern Bohemia
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