This book introduces ten victims of Stalinism who became political prisoners in their own country. Political persecution changed the lives of individuals, families, and perhaps whole generations in many places. Here we deal with the 1950s in former Czechoslovakia. Young Czech authors introduce five male and five female forced laborers in communist prisons and uranium camps. Their life-stories show the everyday life behind the Iron Curtain where sudden captivity for ideological reasons was the daily bread. All the narratives were recorded in 2007–2008 using the method of oral history interview. The first edition was co-financed by the European Union within the programme ”Europe for Citizens” 2007–2013. The second edition was published by the Czech non- profit organization called Političtí vězni.cz (Political Prisoners.eu) established by the authors in 2010. This book is meant as an educational as well as a popularization tool. Witnesses of the past eighty years described what they had gone through in a very authentic way. What and how they tell the authors had one major aim: to share the secrets of those who were meant to be forgotten and thus commemorate the Czechoslovak political prisoners of the initial phase of the socialist dictatorship. www.politicalprisoners.eu www.politictivezni.cz Recommended price: 190 CZK (8 EUR / 9 USD) 9788026 084129 ISBN 978-80-260-8412-9 Czechoslovak Political Prisoners 1 Tomáš Bouška, Klára Pinerová: Czechoslovak Political Prisoners. Life Stories of 5 Male and 5 Female Victims of Stalinism. Second amended edition. www.politicalprisoners.eu All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the authors. Copyright © Tomáš Bouška and Klára Pinerová, 2016. ISBN 978-80-260-8412-9 2 Contents Preface to the Second Edition. .5 Preface to the First Edition. 7 Historical Overview . 9 Interview with Mrs. Jindřiška Havrlantová. 30 Interview with Mrs. Julie Hrušková. 48 Interview with Mrs. Květoslava Moravečková. 66 Interview with Mrs. Drahomíra Stuchlíková. .80 Interview with Mrs. Hana Truncová . 94 Interview with Mr. Augustin Bubník. 108 Interview with Mr. Zdeněk Kovařík. 124 Interview with Mr. Jozef Kycka. 138 Interview with Mr. Jan Pospíšil. 152 Interview with Mr. Hubert Procházka. .166 PHOTODOCUMENTATION The Main Prisons and Penal Labor Camps in Former Czechoslovakia (in 1950s). .181 Penal Labor Camp Vojna. 182 A Letter from Prison. .183 A Suit for Pardon. 185 Secret Letter to General Secretary of the United Nations. .186 Former Uranium Mines and Penal Labor Camps in Jáchymov . 187 Prison Memories. 188 Knowledge Trail “Jáchymov Hell” . 190 About Us. 191 List of Key Words. .192 List of Main Personalities. .195 Recommended Bibliography. 198 Czechoslovak Political Prisoners 3 4 Preface to the Second Edition In 2010 we published the first edition of the Czechoslovak Political Prisoners: 5 Female and 5 Male Victims of Stalinism. It was the first publication we put together, followed by a set of student workshops and an international conference. The informal student events we held in 2009 gave birth to a formal organization that was officially registered at the Prague City Court on November 19, 2010, under the name “Političtí vězni.cz”. (The English translation we have used is Political Prisoners.eu, and it clearly follows the same idea to link the name of the organization to the web domain, although it was never officially registered along with the Czech brand). One can say this book gave birth to the institutionalization process of what later became formally registered as a non-profit & non-governmental organization. The overall aim of Političtí vězni.cz is to research and popularize life stories of former politi- cal prisoners. So far, we have mostly focused on political imprisonment in the 1950s in former Czechoslovakia, but this has never been a strictly defined field of our focus, both topic or period wise. Since the first edition of this book we have published our works on our website (www.politictivezni.cz in Czech and www.politicalprisoners.eu in English) and in two books (the Czech version has been extended and is available online). We have also presented a docu- mentary about former political prisoner Karla Charvátová called “K. Ch.” In addition we have engaged eyewitnesses, experts, and the wider public through conferences, workshops, and popularizing initiatives such as reopening the knowledge trail “Jáchymov Hell”1. We remain volunteers, though we have changed from students to professional scholars working in ar- chives, research institutions, and memorials. What makes the second edition distinct? Firstly, it would never have emerged without the kind help of young scholars Leah Scheunemann, Savannah Lee Harrelson, John R. Leake and Matthew Dickason and a dear expat supporter Brian Belensky who kindly edited the texts of the first edition and made it much more comprehensive to non-Czech readers. We are very thankful to them. Secondly, we have added a bit more contextual information and sources with the aim of bringing more light to the overall situation the narrators describe in the course of their lives. We replaced some of the photos as we have gained better ones in terms of their explanatory and descriptive function. We added a list of key words and names of historical figures used in the book with which the non-Czech reader might not be familiar. The historical chapter was revised and enlarged with a reference to the post-prison life and the democratic period in the Czech Republic which substantially contributed to forming the prisoners´ memo- ries. We have also better described the ten narrators in their short bios before each interview and have linked them to the archival files we were able to research. The files are an important feature of each story as they offer a view into the socialist dictatorship. Obviously, the stories described by the communist interrogators and courts do not have the same words and mean- 1 For more about the trail leading through former uranium mines and penal labor camps see the online version at www.jachymovskepeklo.cz. Czechoslovak Political Prisoners 5 ing when narrated, but they are an important part of the puzzle. We did not stress this aspect in the first edition. There is also one important aspect we wish to reflect in the second edition. It is about our organization. We have changed our view of our research topic during the last seven years. We have met new narrators and visited the old ones several times. We have listened to different in- terpretations of the Czechoslovak ex-political prisoners´ narrative. We have researched archival materials and new studies on different facets of the political imprisonment. New sources have given us a different perspective, and we have begun to think about their narrative within in the broader context of memory studies. Memory is one of the most important ways by which our histories animate our current actions and experiences and is influenced by many factors. Nar- rators told us their stories which differ from other sources. Some memories–traumatic, painful, and shameful–are untold; others – positive or heroic–are exaggerated. However, we would like to note that from ethical reasons we did not publish some sensitive and painful information found in the archives which were not mentioned by the narrators themselves. As public discourse evolves more initiatives like ours tackle the fates of the victims and sur- vivors of the socialist dictatorship. As political prisoners were meant to be forgotten, initiative like ours bring their stories into the public sphere. Their commemoration has become a part of the political and media routine in the Czech Republic. We have used a different approach to- wards both the narrators and the topic in general. It is perhaps more critical, more careful, less admirable and hopefully, more professional. This shall be judged only by the readers, but what we mean to say here is that we realize we see the second edition of this book from a different perspective than we saw it when writing it. We hope this contributes to its higher quality. Unfortunately, by the time we prepared the second edition, most of our narrators were not able to read it anymore as they passed away before it was re-published. However, our intention was to offer their oral histories as a material showing their interpretation of recent past, and this did not change. Their narratives can be studied from the perspectives of history, sociology, penology, political science, anthropology, psychology, and many other disciplines. We believe they preserve the narrative of the Confederation of Political Prisoners of the Czech Republic of which all of them were members and some of them even leading representatives. This is why we really value the below published explications of their memories. What is more, all ten of them faced no issues in coming to terms with their position in society after their release from prison. As the archival research demonstrates, they were not made collaborates with the State Security Police or they were not considered too passive anti-communist fighters to be excluded from being decorated by the Czech Ministry of Defense unlike other political ex-prisoners2. This is another unique aspect of the ten interviews selected for this book. Last but not least, what is not new here is our wish to dedicate this book to the memory of all the Czechoslovak political prisoners who are not with us anymore. They are an important part of our recent history, and we wish to continue to study and popularize them as a research phenomenon. The authors Prague, summer 2016 2 See more on this topic in the Historical Overview that follows both prefaces.