Colonel (ret.) Rudolf Macek

“In July 1952 the military prison in Opava was closed. Once the chief of the headquarters Captain Karafiát from the Ministry of Interior turned up: a horrible swine. The warders ordered us to pack our things and send anything that we did not need back home. They were right. Whoever took anything for the journey with him had never seen it again. They stole everything. They crammed us into three buses and a group of 144 commissioned and petty officers embarked on the journey. We were heading east. We had no clue as to where they were taking us. Whether to Leopoldov or to Russia. By the Váh river in Slovakia the armed convoy luckily turned in the direction of Leopoldov. Guards were already waiting for us. We were put in cells after a thorough search. All our personal belongings like food or cigarettes were confiscated. I guess by some mistake a guard left me one cigarette packet. After I had asked for a light, I immediately got ten days of penal rations. The meager food failed all description. In two months I lost weight from 84 kg to 58 kg. Every morning before breakfast fifty knee-bends, and another fifty after breakfast. Before lunch fifty, another fifty after lunch. And the same at dinner time. I fainted of hunger several times.“

“I had inspected the files of all members of The Military Intelligence. I guess about ninety percent should had leave the service till 1996. They were not the right people to serve the new democratic regime. We had been discussing this issue with general Prochazka, the head of The Military Intelligence, and I had warned him of certain people who had studied in USSR, especially of people involved in missile units. A lot of them had served in our Military Intelligence. Everybody who had studied in USSR more than two months got connected to the KGB. General Prochazka had achieved some success with these people; he argued they had been working hard. I have heard the same from Mr. Ruzek in regard of The Counter-Intelligence, where the situation was even worse. If I should evaluate outcome of my work in The Military Intelligence for three years I would say it was hardly noticeable. I can’t understand even today why we had been employed there. I had worked there with one political prisoner. Finally we were forced to leave, but a graduate from The Faculty of State Security had stayed there. The same had happened with another member of The Counter-Intelligence, one unrehabilitated colonel. We had succeeded to fire only few people, one of them was a secret agent of The State Security. But almost all of the guys from the missile units have stayed.”

„My illegal activities were triggered by February putsch in 1948. I was dispatched to a ski-military course in Spindelruv Mlyn. The course was planned for six weeks, but after three weeks it was dissolved. Military officers concentrated in the course disagreed with communism. We had spent the whole February putsch listening to radio. In the middle of the course I had asked for a leave for a weekend and I left for Náchod. There we started to organize a resistance group. My 12,5 years in prison had started on that day. If military units from Zatec and Slany stepped in with its tanks the unionist revolutionaries on the square would be flattened.”

„I left for Slovakia on 2nd January, on 17th January I was arrested in a classroom. My baggage was searched, my popgun was confiscated and I was transported to a military prison in Bratislava. I had been interrogated until the mid of February there. Then I was transported to Prague to a military headquarters of general Klapalek located on Malostranske square. Six cells were situated somewhere on the fourth floor. Ordinary soldiers were guarding us, but the site was under command of OBZ (Defense Intelligence). I was interrogated by major Mirovsky and others. I was not tortured, only psychical pressure was applied. We were also exposed to starving, but no beating took place. The whole day we had to dwell in darkness, during the night a light was on. We were not allowed to lie on bad. We had spent there about four week. The cell was confined. There stood the bad ninety centimeters wide, only thirty centimeters of free space was left by its side. Food was very salted and we were deprived of drinking water. You had to ask the guards if you wanted to go to toilet and the guards were really slow to comply with your request.”