Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

prison was actually my university.” I was always interested in psychology so I secretly studied
characters and the behavior of other people. It was a great opportunity to share a cell or
a walk with people who were interested in something or wanted to pass on their knowledge.
This was how we got knowledge. That was precious and helped you forget about daily life in
the prison. One woman asked me once to describe a day in the prison. It was not easy at all
to do so. Someone who has never been there would probably say that the life there is very
monotonous. There was a regime, which you had to follow from dawn to dusk. That is true,
but you had time for your ideas and that time cannot be taken by anyone. You basically lived
a double life. The days there were not monotonous because there were constant transports,
searches, letters, and so on.
What about the hygienic conditions in Pardubice?
They were horrible from the beginning to the end. We got used to cold water after some
time. We dealt with water like ladies in Africa. Once we exchanged a wooden dish and then
each of us grabbed it from one side. Those things were forbidden, but tolerated. We asked for
hot water in the kitchen and then used that one load of water to wash our faces, hair, then
clothes, and then the floor.
There was one kind of soap for everything. The wash room was horrible, it was dirty and mildewed.
We were strictly forbidden to wash or dry our clothes. Some chief arrived one day and
we set our conditions. We wanted to wash our clothes and finally we were allowed to do it.
Do you remember any cultural activities?
They started showing films. I do not remember which year it was. We never knew what was
going to be shown and that was the purpose. The films were voluntary and when we went to
watch it, they had time to search our cells.
I remember that once somebody told us about a beautiful film which was going to be shown.
It really was beautiful, but when we came back to our cells they were in a mess and all our
things were jumbled like sugar, straw from the mattresses, everything on one big pile. They
also showed a Soviet film a couple of times, but I do not remember its name. I saw it more then
once, but always had to finish it because they did not let us out.
Do you remember the day when you got released?
I was released before the amnesty in 1960. The Communists knew that the changes were
coming so they started releasing people in 1959. At the end of 1959 they called me into the
administration building. They asked me some questions there, but I was not successful. I think
they would have released me, but I did not reply in the right way. So I went back to the camp
and had my ninth Christmas in the prison. My family applied for my release, but I never asked
for it. They called eight of us again in January 1960. I did not answer in a different way. They
decided to release me on probation. I still had four years to go, but the probation lasted for
eight years and that was very inconvenient. Nobody wanted to give you a job, but you had to
work so you had to accept some inferior one. We did not know the money or means of transport,
we did not know that the third class did not exist in trains anymore. We felt like we fell
down from the sky. One guard took us to the train station. We called him Čáp. I did not have
any civilian clothes. I had to borrow them from Vlasta Brhelová. I looked like a scarecrow. The
guard bought us the tickets and told us the times of our trains. We were like children.
94