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, introduced 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 a 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) 9 7 8 8 0 2 6 0 8 4 1 2 9 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, 2015. 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 labor camps in former Czechoslovakia (in 1950s). .181 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 Labor Camps in Jáchymov. .187 Prison Memories. 188 Knowledge Trail “Jáchymov Hell” . 190 About Us. 191 List if Key Words. 192 List of Main Personalities. .195 Recommended Bibliography. 198 Czechoslovak Political Prisoners 3 4 Preface to the Second Edition Seven years ago 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, closely 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 for us 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 non-profit & non-governmental organization. The overall aim of Političtí vězni.cz is to research and popularize life stories of former po- litical prisoners. We have mostly focused on political imprisonment in the 1950s in former Czechoslovakia so far, but there has never been a strictly defined our field of focus, both topic or time wise. Since the first edition of this book we have published our works on the website (www.politictivezni.cz in the Czech language and www.politicalprisoners.eu in English), in two books (the Czech version has been extended and is available online as well as this edition). We have also presented a documentary about former political prisoner Karla Charvátová called ‘K. Ch.’ and involved eyewitnesses, experts, and the wider public through different conferenc- es, workshops, and popularizing initiatives such as reopening the knowledge trail Jáchymov Hell1. We remain volunteers, though we have changed from students to breadwinners working in archives, research institutions, and memorials. What makes the second edition new? Firstly, it would never be born without the kind help of young scholars Leah Scheunemann and Savannah Lee Harrelson and a dear expat supporter Brian Belensky who kindly edited the texts of the first edition and made it much more compre- hensive to the 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 personalities used in the book with which the read- ers might not be familiar. The historical chapter was revised and enlarged with a reference to the post-prison life and the times of democratic Czech Republic which substantially contrib- uted to forming the prisoners´ memories. 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 social- ist dictatorship. Obviously, the stories described by the communist interrogators and courts do 1 For more about the trail leading through former uranium mines and forced labor camps see the online version at www.jachymovskepeklo.cz. Czechoslovak Political Prisoners 5 not use the same words and meaning when narrating, 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 us. 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 interpretations of the Czechoslovak ex-political prisoners´ narrative. We have researched archival materials and new studies on different matters of the political imprisonment. New sources have given us a different perspective, and we have begun to think about their narrative in 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. Narrators 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 narrators themselves. The public discourse has evolved; more initiatives like ours tackle the fates of the victims and survivors of the socialist dictatorship. We would not say they were meant to be forgotten any- more as they are not. Their commemoration became part of political and media routine in the Czech Republic. We are aware of a different approach we use towards both the narrators and the topic in general. It is perhaps more critical, more careful, less adoring, 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 probably many other disciplines. We believe they preserve the narrative of the Confederation of Political Prisoners of the Czech Re- public of which all of them were members and some of them even leading representatives. This is why we value the below published explications of their memories so much. What is more, all ten of them faced no issues in terms of coming to terms with their position in society after their release from prison. As the archival research shows, they were not made collaborates with the State Security Police or they were not considered too passive anti-communist fighters for 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 2015 2 See more on this topic in the Historical Overview that follows both prefaces.