Helena Nováková

“Then I had to go to listen to the ´announcements.´ They were reading us our sentences and what we were sentenced for. He was announcing the sentence to a guy who was in front of me, saying: ´The prosecution requests triple hanging.´ And I stared at him and kept pondering just how they would carry it out. Binding three pieces of rope together? At that moment I thought it was great irony. He ordered him to leave, started to read my sentence and added: ´And the same applies to you as well.´”

“I told them: ´I was told to report here.´ And they replied: ´It’s probably not here, it would be the State Police.´ So I went to Vansdorf to the State Police department. Those two ´lady comrades´ denounced me to the State Police in Vansdorf. There was a guy, big as a gorilla, if he hit me, I would be smashed to pieces, but luckily nothing like that happened. He told me that they have received a letter about me, informing them that I allegedly said: ´The 1st of May celebration is a dictatorship and terror.´ I replied: ´I said that, but in a completely different way, I said that I cannot be forced to participate, because they came to me and ordered me to walk in the May Day parade. I claimed that I was not obliged to, and that if it was so, it would then be a dictatorship, and I opposed that.´ He said. ´Fine´ and showed me that piece of paper. I told him: ´I know who wrote it.´ and I told him their names. He moved that paper towards me so that I might see it better, and said: ´We shall see what can be done.´”

“My parents asked for my pardon. ´Kléma´ (President Klement Gottwald) obviously turned it down. I was lucky later, when ´Kléma´ died and was succeeded by the ´big-eared torpedo´ Zápotocký I was pardoned. So I spent seven years of my sentence behind the bars.”

“The gatekeeper called me that I should come down to the entrance; somebody was waiting there for me. I looked around the office, said good-bye, took my personal belongings and left. The ´603´ car was waiting for me, they told me to get in. I asked them to stop in our place, so that I could at least go in and grab my toothbrush. Obviously they did not allow me to change, and when I needed to use the toilet I had to leave the door open and they were standing next to me. But they did not harm me. I was in Blažkova Street, it was nicknamed Laufrovka. There was the ´interrogation cell.´ I spent several days there.”

“The weather was warm, I was going sleeveless and so they started demanding ´časy´(´times´). First they asked me my name, wanted me to write it down, but I did not know the Cyrillic, so I wrote it in Czech, in block letters. They were deciphering it, then they noticed my ´times´ (watch), and they wanted them. They started to unfasten them from my wrist and kept saying: ´Davaj.´ (Give.) There was nothing I could do, they were armed, I was afraid.”

“Then I was brought to the court prison. There was a guardswoman, an old lady, Mrs. Růženka, and she would say: ´Girls, we have no idea how to treat you, we are used only to whores and thieves here.´”