František Cigánek

* 1930  †︎ 2017

  • „From ideological points of views I was never raised up that way, nor did I believe in the correctness of atheism and communistic, Marxian view of the world. I considered it wrong, but generally it proved during the whole period, since the shooting from Aurora, to ending the world domination of USSR in the past years, that everything was secret. And it will show still, when next three generations leave, what terrible things they´ve done. Totally non-ethical and anti-social order.“

  • „As we had debts until 1945, before we paid all our debts, we bought a small pig illegally every year. We fed it up and sold it to a butcher in the neighbouring village. As everything was for ration cards, he sold it for a higher price, but we had money to pay back. The butcher in question was quite imprudent, as he put everything down into his diary, where he kept about twenty five people from who he was buying – and for what he sold it to others... And then gestapo came, when they learnt about it all...“

  • „I presumed with all confederates that the secret police makes a proper search of all people I´ve been in contact with. So we destroyed all materials, which were not in our favour, totally everything. Then I managed to cross it, I had a compass... I went through Račí valley, Krebstahl in German, up in Jeseník, near Javorník in Silesia... via Poland I agreed to get skies and travel all the way to the Western zone Berlin and get in touch with the family of our Germans from Brno. And though them I´d sign up for the European school in Bruges.“

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Troubky, 16.11.2015

    (audio)
    délka: 01:15:52
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I only briefly got in touch with uranium mining

Cigánek, portrait
Cigánek, portrait

František Cigánek was born on 25 January, 1930 in Věžky near Přerov. In 1950 he graduated at the commerce academy and continued studying English and Russian languages the Philosophical Faculty of the Palacký University in Olomouc. He never quite endorsed communism, therefore his situation at the faculty gradually deteriorated. He decided to finish his university studies at the European College in Bruges and crossed the state border near the Račí valley in Jeseník region on 29 January, 1953. Yet he was caught by the Polish guard and later sentenced for illegal departure from the republic and expected imprisonment in a lager near uranium mines. After the decease of J. V. Stalin and Klement Gottwald in March 1953 he was released during amnesty of the president Zápotocký. Later he founded a branch of Non-Engaged No-Party Men in Přerov and became a member of the Association of former political prisoners.