“Then came the year 1948 and this is the key point in my narrative. I was obviously very much affected by the events of February1948. What was most important for me was that I felt that they had betrayed Beneš and that it was not quite fair. This was not the main thing, however, because at this point my political development interconnected with my inner search. I thus eventually joined the Dominican Order in autumn 1948.”
“By entering the monastery I got to a place which for me was a centre of culture, depth and genuineness. I was living in the monastery from autumn 1948, and then there was the year 1950. It would be interesting for some directors to make a movie about it, and it is a pity that people don’t know about it. We know what happened in April 1950, when, as they say, the devil was unleashed from his chains. During the attack on monasteries at night at the end of April 1950 we found ourselves in buses with only a couple of things, we just had a small suitcase. We were transported to Broumov, to that concentration camp. We spent several months there until September, and it is easy to remember because on 5th September we received the draft notice for the military service. So we were in Broumov from the end of April, and then we suddenly found ourselves in Slovakia, at first in the fortress in Komárno, and then we were taken to Hájniky near Sliač where we spent many years. So I was there for four years, either in that monastery or doing the military service in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions.”
“As I said, at first we got to the fortress in Komárno – it is still there – and there is still a memorial plaque which says that people like us had passed through there. After about three weeks of training, a kind of a marching training, and so on, we spent the following years in Hájniky near Sliač where we did construction work. Of course, it was very difficult for some people, and it was hard and those were very difficult years. There were suicides, too. Why? A regular soldier knows for sure when his service will come to an end, he knows that he is there for a year or two. But we were told: ‘You will be released only when you improve yourself, when you learn what your mistakes are.’ But they never told us what these mistakes were. Officially it was an army service, and we had uniforms, too. The book ‘Black Barons’ depicts it best. We were black barons, with black epaulettes, like sorcerers.”
Karel Floss was born on 19th July 1926 in Hodonín. His personality and attitude have been formed by his childhood and adolescence years and by the period of his study in Olomouc. He felt affected by the political changes in February 1948 so much that he joined the Dominican Order while he was still a student. His monastic life was interrupted two years later by the Action K, when he and his fellow brethren became interned in the monastery in Broumov. He fell ill during his internment and he nearly died because he did not receive adequate medical care. He recovered thanks to his faith and his approach to life and then he spent three years doing military service in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions. After his release from the military service he worked as an assistant librarian in the agricultural research institute. Karel did not want to give up on his mission in theology and philosophy and for many years he and his brother were therefore organizing home seminars of philosophy in Olomouc. His faith in God was helping him to endure the pressure of the State Security which tried to convince him to collaborate with them. He was able to fully devote himself to academic activities only after 1990, when he started lecturing at Palacký University in Olomouc. In spite of his advanced age he was also actively involved in high-level politics and he initiated the establishment of the Christian-social platform within the Czech Social Democratic Party. He was also elected a senator for this party in the Kutná Hora district. Karel Floss translated academic works from German and Dutch and he participated on the establishment of KAM - Club of Involved Thinking, and the World Ethos Foundation, which contributes to education and formation of young people. In 2011 he wrote his autobiography titled „God Always Shakes the Building.“ He died on May 15, 2024.
