Jozef Kycka

Interview with Jozef Kycka

"It is like if someone does something bad to you, you forgive, but you do not forget. That's it, to Jáchymov, I think."

First I would like to ask you something about your childhood.  When and where were you born?

I was born February 23, 1928 in Opatová, in southern Slovakia. The region is Levice.  My father occasionally worked for farmers or people who had land.  I lived there from February to September 1928 and then my whole family moved to the United States where my father got employment in a factory that made batteries.  It was in Cleveland, Ohio.  After about three years we had to return together with my mom and older brother since there were some property disputes in Slovakia.  It all was solved in 1937 and then we were supposed to move back to the United States.  I don't really remember this well, but I know there were two different companies, Brehmen and Loyd and one of them was facing bankruptcy.  Another agent came to us and offered another company that we could travel with.  Finally it took all so long that we couldn't travel from Hamburg anymore, because it was 1938.  We were then supposed to leave from Turkey, through the Suez Canal, around Africa, and then back to America.  That all finally didn't happen so we stayed here.  My brother joined the Slovakian Army[1] and was sent to the fast division on the Eastern Front in Russia.  When they were retreating he got lost all of a sudden and we got a statement that he died, but I couldn't believe it.  I went to the grammar school in Trnava because Hungarians occupied Levice.  In our village there was one lady who was a nun in Trnava and she offered us to live in Trnava in the orphanage as boarders and go to school there.  We attended grammar school in Trnava until 1944, until the Slovak National Rebellion[2]. 

Do you remember the process of the Slovak National Rebellion and the way the Soviet Army behaved in this case?

It didn't happen close to us.  It happened so quickly that on the night of the 28^th they were broadcasting it on the radio and on the 29^th there were already Germans in our country.  We were set free by the Soviet Army on December 20, 1944.  We were occupied by the Soviet Army and they stayed until the end of March when they finally took Budapest.  During those three months we really learned about their brotherly love.  It was the Second Army from Ukraine, which was led by Malinovsky and these people were mostly from Gulags[3].  What they were saying to us, we couldn't believe.  They picked sixteen year-old boys, including me.  We shouldn't really say they choose us rather they came and told us, "Tomorrow, you start."  I had to go to the bakery to help for three months.  There were prisoners working with us and also soldiers who had a special sign on their uniforms. This meant they were the elite guard.  The main commander of this part of the front lived in our house.  Every two weeks or once a month they held a trial and always sentenced someone to death and they would always kill him in our yard behind the well for water.  Once my grandma was going outside to throw out potato peels and she saw how they shot someone in the back of the neck.  So then they started shooting everyone in our yard.

Did you have the chance to talk to Gulag prisoners about their future?

These Cossacks were telling us unbelievable stories for example, a group was running along the labor camp and they were yelling that they didn't meet the quotas and they should get death as a punishment.  They were reporting themselves asking for death.  I didn't understand why.  I was telling myself that wasn't possible.  There were cases where a prisoner would tell you he didn't even know why he was there and that he never found out.  Then his neighbor would come into the Gulag and he would convince the first guy that he or the neighbor had informed against the first guy and so on.  Then the next guy would come into the Gulag and say he had informed on the neighbor.  I was always imagining that Gulags or exile was something like exile during the era of the Tsar, but after the stories we were told I found out that these Gulags were liquidation camps where the whole families were separated.  Wives on one place, kids to another, and these people would die there starving and in utter misery.  They had to build their own dugouts and live in that.  I don't know how they did this when it was 40 degrees below zero.  We were not even able to imagine it.  We were suspecting that they were only saying it to get drink or wine because when they were sober they didn't want to talk about it at all.  Only the army would be their answer. 

Who exactly told you these stories?

These stories were told by Cossacks who were accommodated in our house and then when we helped in the bakery.  It was in the bakery where we helped to mix dough, make bread, carry bread, and so on. The bakers were telling us about it.  There was a guy telling us he was a priest and we thought he was a priest, but then when we learned more about the Russian language we found out he was a prince, Sokolovsky.  He was the captain of the second navy class and from 1921 he was in the Gulags in Siberia.  He went through many Gulags and he said that his ability to bake saved his life.  He would always bake some pastries for the commanders and would be saved.  He was already sixty maybe sixty-seven.  He was really deaf because somewhere close to him a mine exploded or something similar to that. 

 All this happened before Communism started in 1948.  Did you have any notion of what Communism meant?

I did because there was an old postman living nearby.  He was a democrat and I used to go on visits to see him.  We talked and he was explaining what democracy meant and gave me three books.  These books were called "October Revolution" and they were written by Trotsky.  It wasn't funny and it wasn't a novel.  It was written chronologically and for example there was: Town Carycin, November 7, 7pm or 8pm, A professor and his family was executed behind the town garages, or Leningrad, 8pm, from the bridge someone threw a doctor and his family into the Niva.  There were more stories that happened in other towns and at different hours.  The officials who did this were also described in the books.

You told me that your brother got lost at the Russian Front and you got the announcement about his death.  Did you find out later what happened to him?

After the war my brother came home.  He told us that when he was captured near Odessa he had to walk to Jekatěrinodar.  They forced them to walk.  When Svoboda decided to organize his own army my brother decided to join it.  He didn't talk about things much, but when we drank a bit he started to open up and that was something horrible.

What was Slovakia like after the war?  Did you finish school?

After the war I went back to the Gymnasium in Levice.  I got into some trouble there.  One friend of mine whose name was Palán broke his leg and since he was in hospital we wanted to go and visit him.  I didn't want to look disrespectful so I wore a tie and my friend Stano did as well.  There were two other girls going with us.  When we came to school a professor came and pointed his finger at Standa and I, hit us, then asked why we were dressed like that.  We replied that we were going to visit our friend in the hospital, but he didn't believe us.  He said, "It's March 14[4] today and this used to be the Slovakian national holiday."  They chased us to the director's office and they called our parents to school.  Finally I was suspended from school because I had a, "bad report," and I was forbidden to study at any high school in Czechoslovakia.  I had to go to work in the heavy industry in Ostrava.  That was already in 1947 when they started to chase democrats.  I was in Ostrava during he February happenings.  The workers got shotguns and they were put around the gates and important objects around town. 

You didn't stay long in the north of Moravia did you?

No, from there I left because after that February a friend of mine escaped across the border.  He left a suitcase at my place telling me he was going to visit an uncle in Prague to see about a job.  His uncle was a head doctor.  My friend was caught trying to cross the border and was in prison in Cheb for two weeks.  From there I got a letter with his apology for not telling me anything and for betraying me.  He also promised he would explain everything after he was released.  He never came back.  He was released and he escaped. 

So he successfully crossed the border then?

Yes, after a month policemen came to my boarding house asking me where he was.  I just told them he was in Prague and that he left a suitcase at my place.  I took the suitcase out and it was locked.  They opened it, went through it, and they took the suitcase with them and me as well.  Then I was released, but I had to sign a paper that I wouldn't tell anyone about what happened and what they asked me about.  At that time I already noticed someone who was trying to be really discreet, so much so that he was actually visible.  So I went home to Slovakia and my brother, who then worked at Jáchymov, was there by chance.  The prisoners started to work in Jáchymov in 1945 or 1946 already.  They recruited these guys who were unmarried to be guards.  So my brother went and he told me, "Hey, come to Jáchymov.  There are Russians and no one will keep an eye on you there."  So I went.  In the fall or maybe in the end of summer in 1945, sixty Russian soldiers with one commander came to Jáchymov and they occupied some camps.  The names of the camps were Svornost (Concord), Rovnost (Equality), and Bratrtsví (Brotherhood). They stayed there and they didn't let anyone else in except for the people who were supposed to work there.  Then sometime in October they signed an agreement because it came out that the Soviets would like to mine.  So I came to Jáchymov and I really got a job from a lady named Pusíková in lab number 1.  I worked with the high quality uranium ore.  I was measuring the ore and I just vegetated there.  I came there in June of 1948. 

What was your experience and your brother's experience?  You had to meet political prisoners there is that right?

There weren't many of them there yet.  They started coming in 1949 and they practically took turns after the German prisoners.  I was in Horní Slavkov where the prisoners also started coming.  There were a couple of political prisoners among them, but they never talked about it.  If you asked what they were sentenced for then you would get the answer, that they were caught reading political magazines in someone's apartment.  They were making fun of it and didn't want to talk about it until they got to know you a little better.  Then I met a couple boys from Slovakia.  There was a guy named Kanys.  There were more of them and they were telling me what was going on, what they were sitting for, and what things looked like so I was informed a little bit at that time. 

You were working in a lab the entire time you were there? 

Later I worked as a technical controller.  When the trailers for active uranium arrived, but the content wasn't the greatest I was supposed to go there and check it.  I did it really simply saying, "Guys, you are just fighting against yourselves.  You throw the big stones that don't contain any uranium away, but on the smaller ones you put a paper "A" meaning they are for the "active trailer."  If there is no uranium they will dump it out, but if there is, you will get 50 crowns per kilogram."  So they simply started doing this.  All of a sudden a friend who emigrated appeared.  We grew up together.  I was just asking him, "What are you doing here?"  He replied, "Well I came back, where do you work?"  He showed me his identification and it said that he worked in the mine of Ludvík Svoboda[5] in Ostrava, but he had a fake name there.  I told him, "Hey, play this game with someone else."  So he told me what he was doing there and he slept over two or three times.  In Jáchymov they made a forbidden zone and everyone who lived in Jáchymov had to have this information in their ID.  This friend of mine was locked up in our village.  He was arrested there because he wanted to see his mother.  He stayed at an old woman's place, who used to be a countess.  It was her property that was confiscated. As a result they let her stay and live in a monastery.  Imagine that she died in the monastery that night.  Since her lights were on men who were coming home from the pub were curious to see what she was doing.  They threw a couple small stones in and because there was no reaction they went in.  They wanted to ransack the house, but right in that moment a policeman came.  My friend was locked there in the other room and couldn't escape because there were bars on the window.  Anyways he had a letter for me just with the information that he would go to Mariánské Lázně near Karlovy Vary and he would like to meet me.  He was asking me if I could come to the train station.  All in all this letter was quite innocent.  Now I am guessing because I never saw it.  Then I was being followed for about a month.  My friend was locked up in March and I was locked up one month later. 

What was your arrest like?

I was arrested April 25, 1952.  For sure they had been keeping their eyes on me.  I was transferred from Slavkov to Rovnost.  They put me there probably so they could watch me because there were two co-workers that they had.  On April 25, 1952 at the end of the afternoon shift I came out of the shaft.  We came to the gate and there they couldn't find my ID so the gatekeeper told me, "Come in."  So I went in and when I was in someone put their fingers into my back saying, "In the name of the Czechoslovakian Republic keep your arms at your side and you are arrested."  Then they dragged me outside and in front of the gate there was a Tatra police car with policemen standing next to it.  The whole convoy of cars started moving and they took me down to Jáchymov to a place called Lužice, which was a spa house.  There they put me into a cell, which already had four people.  There was something like a bed made from wooden boards and on that was straw and a blanket.  There we vegetated.  There were two East Germans from Johajurgenstadt and two Czech boys, I was the fifth.  There I stayed for twenty-one days.  They took my pictures from both the front and side and they started investigating and interrogating.  They knew about my friend, I couldn't deny that.  I said, "He was here once on the day of miners.  He came to see me from Ostrava and over there he worked in a mine of Ludvík Svoboda.  He showed me his ID and ever since I haven't seen him."  Imagine he said the same thing!  We didn't see each other to make this deal.  Then they took me to Klatovy to the investigation department that they called Jestřáb (falcoln).  This was Jáchymov's counter espionage unit.  Here they were taking all people who either tried to escape or were planning an escape and all these people were transported here and investigated.

When I was locked up I was 92 kilograms (200 pounds) and I knew that because the week before I was at a check-up.  Three months later I was 61 kilograms (135 pounds), what a diet! 

What were the conditions like in Klatovy?

In the morning and at noon we would get a small piece of bread, maybe 12 decagrams and a little bit of black coffee, which we called mud.  For lunch we got soup in a small enamel cup.  Mine was numbered 49 sometimes 47.  You know, in prison you try not to go crazy and you need to work and you need your mind to work somehow so for example I would count the knots in the wooden boards and I tried to remember how many did the third or fifth board have.  I always counted 19 1/2 to 20 spoons of soup.  That was lunch and sometimes for supper we would have the mud again.  Only on Fridays would we get three small tiny potatoes in a peel and coffee. 

What was the hygiene like in Klatovy?

Hygiene... there wasn't a comb and there wasn't a toothbrush.  There was a rag for washing the floor, 30x30cm (14x14 inches).  Using this we washed ourselves and then we washed the floor.  In Klatovy they gave us a bucket with water, which was also used for the floor afterwards.  Plus they would give us the cloth for the floor, so first we would wash ourselves, then pour the water out and wipe off the floor.  That was what the hygiene consisted of over there. 

Did you stay in Klatovy the whole time?

Later they took me to Nitra for the confrontation to meet my compliant.  They handcuffed me and took me there and put me into a dark cell and then they took me to the officer.  That was a sharp man.  I refused to eat because I was in "the dark."  I was telling myself, "I am in the dark and I don't know why?"  So the officer called me out and he asked me why didn't I want to eat?  I just replied, "Because I am here, I am in the dark, and nothing is happening to me."  He sent me back, but not into the dark anymore.  They put me into the cell next to the old one.  There were two prisoners, Doctor Homola and an accountant from the cooperative.  After five weeks they transported me to my confrontation with my compliant who was in Nitra.  One guard who was trying to be diligent took him to my cell.  We were together for the whole night so we were able to explain things to each other.

Did you find out everything that your friend did and who was he working for?

He worked with the French.  They were hiring people among the immigrants and he was supposed to go to the legion or work in a company.  His father was also in America, but it was a stepfather and he never invited him.  My friend was hoping he would, but he never did.  So he stayed in Germany and he worked for the French.  He was coming to Czechoslovakia and he always went back.  In Slovakia they finally caught him.  He had a trial with another group of people in Slovakia because he formed two or three different groups, all together numbering fifty people.  I was sentenced alone and from Nitra they took me to Bratislava.  At that time there was some really hot weather and they put me in a Škoda car and I had to lie down.  They put some fur coats over me that guards wore in winter.  After they took me out of the car I was so sweaty that you can't imagine it.  They took me up a stairs on a spiral staircase and up there I was put into a cell.  I was completely exhausted and my head was buzzing and I lied down.  A guard opened the door for food and asked, "What's wrong with you?  Aren't you feeling well?"  I didn't answer.  He opened the door completely, came to me and asked, "Would you like to take a shower?" I said, "No, not really."  "Are you sure?"  "Yes."  "Come and have a shower."  He blinded me and we went up the steps, once down, then they spun me around.

I didn't want to believe this because I didn't have a good experience from Klatovy.  There it happened that a guard came to me and asked if I wanted to take a bath.  After he walked me there I didn't want to believe it.  It was a beautiful clean warm bathtub.  It was joy.  I took my clothes off and it started moving me.  Electricity!  I fell out of the bath and the guard was just laughing.  He was looking at me through the observation hole in the door laughing, "So what?  Did you have a bath already?"  I didn't even wipe myself off, I got dressed, he blinded me, and sent me blind across the corridor yelling, "Hey, I'm sending him to you."  I bumped into something and it made a terrible commotion.  I stepped on something and I fell over.  There were washbasins and buckets stored there.  I bumped into it, threw it down on the concrete and in a second someone was next to me and dragged me away.  I never wanted to have a bath again. 

Anyways in Bratislava I was telling myself that this guard looked nice so I went to have a shower, "Set the water as you like it."  I set the water, he gave me soap and a brush saying, "Take it easy and shower.  Wash yourself properly."  So I washed and I wiped myself.  I came back into the cell and he said, "Lay down I'm guarding until taps so you can sleep."  He asked me if I was hungry and I said yes.  He brought me coffee, but it was sweet coffee for soldiers and a piece of bread.  I ate it all and I fell asleep in a second.  Do you know how I felt?!  In the morning I woke up.  He was there again and told me, "You are leaving today, I'm transporting you to Bohemia," and I went back to Klatovy. 

You came back to Klatovy again where you had such bad memories.  Did something change over there?

The food changed beyond recognition.  There was lunch.  The food was served through a small little door and they would push your cup with soup towards you using their leg.  We got cup one cup, a second cup and the guy was taking it away.  All of a sudden I saw something like a can and I just asked, "What is it?"  We ate the soup and all of a sudden there was another meal, some potatoes, some sauce, and a piece of meat.  So I said, "Excuse me, but am I in Klatovy?"  My prison mate answered, "Yes, that's the place."  I responded, "This food?"  "Well friend, we've had this food for about two weeks."  So I asked, "Why?"  There was a new prisoner who was a member of the International Red Cross who was invited into the country as an expert on snake farms.  He was made a prisoner because an officer from the secret police who was a spy in Switzerland was caught.  It was understandable that they wanted an exchange so this specialist from the Red Cross was arrested so this exchange could happen.  He refused to speak and he was refusing to eat as well.  In two days a consul came from Switzerland and was threatening with the possible inspection from the International Red Cross.  They didn't do the inspection, but the food got better.  We got a meal for lunch and supper and that improved things a little bit.

I also have another story to tell you.  In the cell there was a prison mate named Pepík Fořt.  Once he was called out and a little while after that I heard a terrible cry and yelling underneath the windows.  In a moment they brought Fořt back and put him back into his cell without his towel.  The guy was white as a wall.  I asked him, "What's wrong?"  He was shaking, telling me, "Man this is horrible, do you know what happened?  They took me and another prisoner and they let the dogs out to chase us, but the dogs went after the guards."  Meanwhile we heard from our cell, "See good for you then, you weren't supposed to do this.  Why did you irritate the dogs in the clothes for Mukls[6]?  You thought they would go after the uniform, but they go after the smell."  This guard was training the dogs to chase Mukls and he would come, dressed in a Mukl's uniform and he was brutal to the dogs in the cage.  When they saw him coming they would growl.  He thought they did this because of the uniform, but the dogs learned the sounds and smells.  So in the moment they took the two prisoners out and he was standing by them, the dogs pulled him down to the ground and Pepík Fořt quickly took the towels down from his eyes.  One dog was holding the guard's leg and the other the shoulder and they couldn't get them off.  So Pepík returned to his cell.  Things like that  happened there. 

Could you describe in detail how the investigations went?

It went like this, they would take me there and in the beginning it was quite common, sweet things and reasoning that you have a family, a son, and that you will sit for a long time.  My son was born in December 1950.  Once there came a lady who brought in some papers.  She hit me so hard that I fell down from my chair.  It was a punch as from a canon shot.  My teeth were broken so I spit them out.  They let me be like that.  I refused to give testimony the way they wanted so I wasn't allowed to sit.  I had to keep walking in my cell and if I stopped in a second they were banging on the door.  At night they kept waking me up even though I wasn't at any hearings or interrogations.  Sometimes they would investigate, I would sit, and five or six people would exchange seats at the table.  It was a circle.  One would give you these questions and another would give you different ones to make one completely confused.  Then I was practically sleeping, but I was still speaking and suddenly finding out that I didn't know what I was saying.  These things were quite unpleasant.  I had to keep marching.  I had sandals from which my legs were swollen.  It was like standing on needles.  My soles were swollen and I complained about it.  They kept making up things about me all the time.  At night they would kick my door, I would have to jump up, and report my presence every quarter of an hour.  The light would be constantly on and we had to lay straight on our back with arms at the top of the cover.  In a moment when I turned around there would be knocking at the door again.  You had to jump up and report your presence once again.  The arms had to be out because it was happening that someone would want to cut their wrists.  We had to lie on our backs, the bulb was lit above our heads, but people still fell asleep because of the tiredness.

Once I was invited by an investigator and I had to stand up by the wall.  At that time there was paper money and I had to keep my arms behind my back holding the paper bill by my nose on the wall.  The paper money fell down, I got such a slap from the back that my nose broke against the wall.  They were making fun of it.  Sometimes they would let you sit in the corner and they would threaten you with a saber, but the worst were the psychological forces.  When he started telling me that they will arrest my wife or even that she is arrested and that the kid is somewhere away.  He told me, "What do you think you can do to us?  Out of you we will make corpses, your wives will become whores, and your children will become orphans, and we will bring them up that they will never even come and look at your grave."               

What confession did they want to hear?  What exactly was their goal?

They wanted to hear what I told my friend.  I said, "From me he didn't want to hear anything."  When I told him, he wouldn't get anything out of me and they said that they had information from other places.  I was in Klatovy for 2 weeks maybe 3 weeks and then they put me in a car again and took me to Pankrác[7].  In the morning they woke me up, I had to take my clothes off, cross the cell to another side, take one step to the back, and lean against the wall.  It got dusty down there and dusty in my armpits.  They were spraying us with DDT.  It was like an enema.  It stunk and it was burning.  I came back to the cell and there was a guy waiting for me.  When I came he said, "Hey, I will be washing you down."  So I had to wash in the toilet.  In Pánkrac we washed our dishes in the toilet and drank water from the toilet because there was nothing else.  There I stayed for about five weeks, I don't know how long.  Then they took us in an "Anton"[8] to Cheb.  They took eight or nine of us. 

So did you confess to anything? 

No, there was nothing I could confess to.  There was a trial and of course my defendant was doing a great job.  He spoke to the court and the court said that it knew he (the lawyer) has got me as a court appointed lawyer.  It was also said that the court will not look at the defense with sympathy because it's their duty not to and that the court will be strict, but righteous according to my age.  That was it.  The prosecuting attorney made a real bad man out of me such as a drunkard and an irresponsible person.  I was also psychologically influenced when I was a kid because I was brought up in a monastery.       

When were you sentenced?

I had a trial in October 1952.  I got eighteen years of so-called heavy prison and for ten years they took away my civil liberties and all my property was confiscated.  The National Senate in Cheb came to the opinion that out of my position I could give out the most important information for the country's defense and that is why they sentenced me to eighteen years of heavy prison.  They also suggested the death penalty so I could be happy I got eighteen years.  I didn't believe though that the regime would stay in this country for another forty years.  I gave it five, a maximum of six years. 

What were you exactly charged for?

When they were giving out the sentence I don't know how many pages the charge was.  In the end there was a suggestion for the absolute punishment.  Three days before the court the head of the senate read it to me.  The next day another man came telling me he was now my court appointed defendant.  He introduced himself as Dominic Skutecký or something like that.  He told me that I should confess everything or I'll get the death penalty. 

 Where did they take you after the trial?

I was transported to the central camp that was in Jáchymov called Bratrství (Brotherhood).  There they shaved our heads, changed our clothes, and got a couple of new things.  There were two blankets, a cup, a spoon, and clothes called "Halina."  We were sorted into groups, I was sent to a place called Vršek and then they took me to Nikolaj.  In two years I was taken from Nikolaj and sent back to Rovnost (Equality).  Totally I sat for eight years.  I was released on a pardon in 1960. 

What were the relations like in camp?  Did you have any friends there?

There were friends, when I came there were two other guys who came to see me from Slavkov.  I knew they worked at mine 11 and I helped them a couple of times because I used to work at Slavkov as a mine inspector.  They brought me sugar and tobacco and they could have gone to prison for this. 

What was it like when you used to work there as a civilian employee and all of a sudden you were in the same position as a Mukl?

I couldn't do anything about it.  I had to be there and I practically knew why.  It was helplessness.  I could see how the civil workers who knew me, started running towards me.  I just told them, "Hey, keep back, continue in your work and don't pay any attention to me" because I was worried that they would keep watching me and there could be others, ruined and unhappy, because of me.  My wife lived in Jáchymov, but I never sent anyone to see her because I couldn't put her in danger and the person as well.  Although she was under surveillance as well, I'm sure of that.  A couple of times she came when we were riding in the Russian Bus.  Do you know what that is? 

No, could you be more specific?

Well for example 250 people had to stand up, always according to the number that was supposed to go on the shift.  They counted us on the square and then we had to come together so that we would be touching each other's hips and bodies.  Then they went around us with a steel rope, which was about 5 millimeters thick and then they locked this with a padlock and in this way the whole package of people marched.  I don't know if you can call it marching though, we were actually jiggling, walking to the shaft because shaft Eduard was 800-900 meters away from camp Nikolaj.  We had to walk on the main road where there was no corridor or main fence.  It took us sometimes even an hour before we jiggled there like this. 

What were the conditions like in Camp Nikolaj?

Camp Nikolaj was known as one of the worst camps.  There was a main Commander Šambergr.  There was also a commando, which was making prisoners who were sentenced by the National Court to sign the Socialist Commitment[9].  The prisoners were not called "political prisoners," but they were called "state prisoners."  One would commit him self to work over 100 %.  If you didn't sign it the commando would beat you up. 

Did you know who was in that commando?

Well the boss of the commando was called Jeníček[10] and the whole group was 12 people if I remember it well.  There was also Baxa, Kužela Jirka or Gygar.  The last thing they did was beat Honza Mátl and Šošenko. I don't remember who ran up to the building and told us, but we simply said we would not respect that.  So we ran to the gatehouse and from there they started jumping out from the windows because they were worried.  They were always calling people to the gatehouse to be beaten up.  This time the commando got a great whipping.  Then the took all of them to the infirmary and Jeníček was transported to camp "L."[11] 

When I say prison university, can you tell me anything about it?

Well yes, there were two things.  At first the guards were giving us trainings.  There was a guy we called, "Filth."  He was a cultural educator[12], he would wake us up at 11pm and we had to get to the culture house.  All shifts had to get there and then he would give us training for an hour.  He would always say, "Filth, is it right?" and those who were sitting in the first row would have to nod their heads.  "Is that right, Filth?"  That's why we called we him "Filth."  Then he had a lecture called "Stalin Sent a Word."  That meant he kept telling us all hour what was Stalin's message.  Also there was another guy, another cultural educator called "The One Who Told Seven Lies," and this one was always saying, "What I'm telling you here are facts that really happened."  At this moment no one could laugh.  Or he would be explaining to us the difference between socialism and capitalism.  He told us to look how long it took the Soviet Union to dig a channel from the Volga to the Don.  That was a result of a socialist camp.  He told us to look at how long it took the capitalists to dig the British Channel.  You couldn't laugh about that.

Then someone suggested that we could get together in the buildings.  When you asked the guards carefully the guards would say yes.  There was always someone who would be giving a lecture on something for example there was Baťovci[13] who told us about Baťa, his system, and so on.  Then there were professors who would gather people into a group and tell people about philosophy or chemistry.  It depended on what you wanted to hear.  So this was called the University of Jáchymov.  Actually it was a good school for us you know.  First thing was one met a lot of good people over there and then whoever wanted could learn wonderful things. 

Do you have any health problems from prison?

I can not see I would have health consequences, but for example my fingers are cracking.  I have tiny little cracks.  I have that from sorting the uranium.  I worked all four years at a place where uranium was sorted by hand.  We didn't get any gloves.  For a long time I had azoneurosis (he did not get enough blood into his fingertips).  Until today, when the weather turns colder my fingers turn white.  That was from working with a machine, but all in all I don't have any other problems. 

If we looked at your story with the eyes of your wife, how did she struggle during this separation?  You were a father of a family correct?

I think that our wives, parents, and families were psychologically affected much more because those of us in the prison were together.  We all had similar attitudes.  We were all of the same blood group, we say, but those who stayed at home had it hard.  People were turning their back on them, being malicious, and doing bad things on purpose.  For example, they would come up to my wife at midnight with dogs, wake her up, made a mess in the whole apartment, tell her that I escaped, and they also told her that if I showed up she would have to report it or she would go to prison and that our kid would be sent away to foster homes.  Then in two weeks they would tell her they caught me!  They told the same stuff to my mom and in two weeks they told her again that I was shot and wounded while trying to escape.  At that moment my mom had just gotten a permit for a visit so she would come and coincidentally I would really be wounded a little bit.  Some stones fell on me and it tore my eyebrow.  I was a little pale and my mom said, "Boy, why are you doing this?  Don't you know you have a family?"  I didn't know what she was talking about.  "Well, they will kill you."  Then the guard jumped up and I replied, "Kill me?"  Mom asked me where was I shot and I tore apart my shirt asking, "Where was I shot?"  The guard ended the visit telling us we can only talk about family matters.  I told him it was a family matter if they tell my mom her son is shot, wounded, and constantly tries to escape!  So they were chasing them as much as they could.  They were pushing the women to divorce.  They were switching her from one job to another, telling her if she divorces then she will get another job. 

During the time you were in prison you were working on small gifts that you sent to your wife is that right?

I sent those not only to my wife, but we made those for all our friends.  You know we did that because we wanted to give something to our visitors.  If you had a contact through a civilian worker there you could also send some things.  For example, at Christmas time we were making little cards, little figures, crosses, and such little gifts. 

What was your return to civilian life like?

One felt really insecure.  It took a long time before we felt civilized again.  I did a good thing because I took a month off.  I was supposed to report myself to the labor office, but I went to Slovakia.  I told myself I haven't had a vacation for eight years so why couldn't I have a rest?  I let the doctors check me up properly and they sent me back.  They told me to get back into shape or it would be bad for me. 

Why were they telling you this?

Well, because of the radioactivity.  I had about 14,000 white blood cells.  Míla Adámek, who was a doctor prisoner who was studying the results of radioactivity on people's health was the biggest icon in this medical field.  He was giving me 2-3 years to live if I leave the mines.  Then we met in 1989 and I told him, "Miloš, hey you don't know how to count.  He said, what do you mean?  And I said that you gave me 2-3 years to live. He just replied, "Be happy that I can not count well..." 

Where did you go when you came back from prison?  What kind of job were you searching for?

I could go to the work in the quarry because in Levice there was an old quarry and there was a factory called Onyx.  There they were making various things out of it: paper weights, tables, various chess figurines, and other things made from stone.  They wanted me to be a teacher at a trade school to teacher penmanship.  Doctor's recommended that I get back to the radioactivity for a while and slowly work my way out of it so I listened to them.  They didn't let me go down into the shafts anymore because I was seriously ill, but I was bravely going down until May. 

What do you think about Charter 77, dissidents, and the year 1989[14]?

Well my opinion is that they didn't really want communism to disappear.  They wanted communists to meet the promises they made in Helsinki.  Why didn't they make dissidents out of us?  Why did they execute and make criminals out of us.  They executed 240 people, they beat to death many of them, many of them died in mines, many on the borders, no one knows exactly today.  There are many people who are reported missing, but somewhere there bones lie, and these people were dissidents.  To Rovnost they once brought Goldstücker[15], Hromádka and Láďa - the guy who was a member of the Central Committee.  Goldstücker was punched at Rovnost really hard and they beat him like a horse.  Do you know why?  Because he was giving a statement in the OSN that we don't have barbed wires here. 

How do you as a political prisoner look at modern history?  What would be the easiest way to give this to the young generation and inform them?

Tell them the truth.  It's necessary to speak about things.  Freedom doesn't mean I can do everything I want.  Freedom means responsibility so the things wouldn't fall apart.  It means toleration.  I think this, I don't care who is communist today, that is his own business as long as you don't do any harm to others.  Or if someone believes and has faith it's his own business or he can be in a political party that he likes.  I imagine that in this government we have the positions for the reason so no harm is done to the nation.  The opposition and coalition must agree on things that would benefit the whole country.  When the Germans were able to de-Nazify their offices why weren't we able to do it here? 

What comes to mind when I say Jáchymov?

Jáchymov.  One would rather forget about bad things.  Or you do not forget about it, but you stop thinking about it.  It is like if someone does something bad to you, you forgive, but you do not forget.  That's it, to Jáchymov, I think.  When you say Jáchymov the labor camps don't come into my head.  When people speak about them, I can think about everything, but now like this they don't come into my head. 

After you were released did you ever meet any of your guards, court prosecutors, or someone who influenced your life's destiny for such a while?

Yes, I met them.  For example I applied for rehabilitation in 1969.  The lady prosecutor took it and said, "Well yeah, that's clear."  She gave me my charge asking me whether I read it and I said I didn't.  So she asked why did you sign it?  I just said I had to.  If I wouldn't it would have been bad for me.  So everything looked all right.  At the time I got the invitation to one of the last court hearings.  I went to Plzeň, to the regional court and there was sitting the same judge who sentenced me.  Now he was a chairman of the Senate that was supposed to rehabilitate me.  So I told myself, "That's it."  He called me to the coffee table and asked me, "Do you know what happened in Chile?"  I said, "Sure, there was a plot.  Pinotchet started a revolution."  Then he said, "You see, then you can not be rehabilitated then."  So because Pinotchet started a rebellion in Chile, they could not rehabilitate me.  So I asked, "What does Chile have to do with that?" He answered, "Well we are in the same camp."  So I wasn't rehabilitated. 

I was rehabilitated after 1989.  I wrote another application and in a week I had a statement that I was rehabilitated. 

What do you think about the moral rehabilitation?  Do political prisoners get enough attention?

You know I don't support any glorification of people.  I only think the biggest satisfaction would be if the Bolsheviks would say they were sorry.  When the political prisoners already accused someone it should be ran to the end.  The person doesn't have to go to prison, these people are also so old.  The nation should know what really happened.  I'm not going for someone's throat, but there were cases when people were executed in monster processes.  Even the surviving relatives of the executed never received any compensation.  Money can not make up for their loss.  No one cares about these people today, although they live in deep poverty.  Communists just laugh and they are putting their hands up in government whether someone should be compensated or they should be given back their property in which they stole from them in the first place.  What kind of law is that?  This is the time we live in and this is the law and we who are old can't do anything about it.  It's a pity we are not twenty years younger. 

Thank you very much for the interview. 

[1] Slovak State (officially the Slovak Republic) Today´s Slovakia. It existed in 1939 - 1945 and was abridged of the occupied Hungarian territory. The first Slovak Republic was a political and military ally to Nazi Germany.

[2] The Slovak National Rebellion - it was an armed riot of the anti-fascist power in Slovakia at the end of WWII.

[3] Gulag was one of the departments of the secret police in the Socialistic bloc, managing a system of concentration and working camps in the U.S.S.R. The word gulag was then used for a group of these camps and camps under this institution.

[4] On March 14th the Slovak State was formed. This year was a national holiday from 1939 to 1945.

[5] Ludvík Svoboda (1895 - 1979) was an army general, in 1945 he was a Minister of Defense as an independent and in 1968 he was elected as the Czechoslovakian president.

[6] „Mukl" - someone who was in prison, the word "mukl" itself comes from the abbreviation of - "a man on death row" (in Czech: muž určený k likvidaci). It was a label given to political prisoners imprisoned by communist or Nazi regimes that were not supposed to be released and were supposed to die in prisons or concentration camps. Later on, this label was used for all political prisoners. 

[7] Pankrác - a prison in Prague.

[8] "Anton" - a closed police van for transport of prisoners.

[9] Within socialistic commitments people promised for example to work extra hours or also on Sundays and national holidays.  They then got various privileges, e.g. to write more letters home, to get more parcels.  It was also promised they would be released earlier.

[10] Břetislav Jeníček was a leader among prisoners (the highest position in the prisoner´s autonomy). He was sentenced to life for cooperation with the Gestapo. In camp Nikolaj he made political prisoners´ lives tough, since he organized various beating commandos.

[11] Camp called „L", sometimes called also a camp for liquidation. There was „ a tower of death" where the prisoners were coming into direct contact with radioactive uranium.

[12] Cultural educator - person who organized various political and ideological lectures.

[13] Baťovci was name for a group of people who attended Baťa´s school. This school was established in Zlín by Tomáš Baťa who was one of the best businessman during the First Czechoslovakian republic (1918-1938).  He is an important icon in the history of management and business.

[14] The phenomenons of modern Czechoslovakian history that are directly connected with the fall of the Communist regime in November 1989.

[15] Goldstücker...