Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

chine where there were some long poles and I had to estimate, after it went through some
other machine, whether the poles were straight or not. The civilians were not nice to us there,
they were brutal, vulgar, and they spat on the ground when they saw us. The prison officers
did not have to take care of us so much because the proper communist workers did their jobs
for them. I got a really bad migraine in January. I felt so bad that even a police officer took pity
on me and took me outside to get some fresh air. Then they changed my position. I had to dig
out metal chips, using a pickaxe. I worked together with another prisoner, Mrs. Stará. We had
to dig the chips out and put them in carts.
When did you have your first visit?
I had it in Kladno. The visits took place by a big wide table. It was all very strictly observed.
My grandma came. She was a tough and brave woman and she brought me a homemade
pie, but the prison officers did not want me to have it, so she said, “Eat that pie.” So I ate the
whole pie in front of the officers’ eyes. She also brought some photographs from which I stole
one for myself. It was a little photo from the last New Year’s party in our house. In the prison
we used to wear jogging pants with an elastic band around the waist, which was very suitable
for hiding things. I showed that photo to one of my friends, but I am sure she did not put me
down. I only had a few friends there, but they were good ones. I think someone else must have
seen it and told an officer. They came to search my cell, but I hid the photo very well, so they
did not find it. Soon after that, in February 1952, they took us to Jilemnice. No accommodation
was ready for us. It was only a small prison with two or three little cells. It was only made for
escorts, not for staying in. Later we lived in a factory, which had already been closed down.
There were bars on the windows and a kitchen in the ground floor. Every day we walked under
surveillance. We worked for the Technolen company, which was about 15 minutes away from
where we were staying. We spun flax there. So I was in Jilemnice from February 1952, I stayed
there over Christmas, and in January 1953 they moved us to a different workplace where we
worked with hemp and then they moved us to Varnsdorf. That was a labor camp where we
worked only at night because the civilians did not want to do the night shifts. Most of us
spoiled their sight there, because of working at night. We were in Varnsdorf when Stalin and
Gottwald died.
What were the prison officers’ reactions to those events?
We took a different way to work and we somehow felt that the female prison officers were
scared of us and did not know what was going to happen.
Did you know that Stalin and Gottwald died?
Of course we knew. The Czechoslovak army practised their parades and marches under our
windows and they shouted the news to us. We whispered the news to each other on the way to
work. For this reason they decided to concentrate all people sentenced to 10 or more years to
one place and they sent us quickly to Pardubice. I arrived there on May 19, 1953. The weather
was hot in those days and we were all thirsty. They told us to stand on the small yard facing
the wall, the sun was shining strongly on us. The chief of the Pardubice prison came and told
us that none of us would leave and we would all serve our sentence. All of us were sentenced
to 10, 15, or 18 years.
Could you please describe the prison in Pardubice?
There were masonry buildings “A” and “B,” which were built during the reign of Marie
Teresa, and a big administration building by the pavement at the edge of the prison. The
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