Karel Otčenášek

“For some time, the Jesuit professors and pedagogues thought that I would join their order, but then they told me I rather ought to become a diocese priest, because I had very poor parents and as a diocese priest I would have a better chance to support them not only financially, but also to have them live with me in a rectory when they got old, etc. The enjoyed a long life, my mom died while I was already in prison. When they broke the news to me, they said that had I behaved, they would have allowed me to go to my mother’s funeral, but that instead that they would not let me. My daddy died even later, when I was relatively free, but still it was very difficult to obtain permissions so that I could bury him myself. They are now both buried in that new cemetery in Meziříčí.”

“In Želiv they were bringing us meals from a kitchen, where friars worked as cooks, there were many of them interned there. One day, we found in our soup an ampoule with the message that Stalin just died. We then knelt behind closed door and we prayed that God would forgive those terrible crimes, and naturally also that the situation would now get better. But suddenly a warden, who was passing by, noticed us, and he kicked into the door and said: ´All the world is now crying for having lost its father, and you here are giving thanks to that god of yours…´ He was not able to understand that we also prayed for our enemies, although what we had to endure there was difficult.”

“When I got into prison, they already kept us priests separate from lay people. For they knew we encouraged them – don’t give in, Lord God will not let it continue this way, even though God’s judgment does not come quickly, hold on! Our guards did not like to hear things like that, and therefore they isolated us completely. One time they tested me, they put me among lay prisoners for about three weeks, watching whether I would secretly ordain somebody a priest. They already knew I was a bishop. I have never admitted that, it was great secret; I was not even supposed to tell it to my parents. But then, if something was to be done, you needed to give some kind of a hint.”

“Unfortunately, there was nothing like this, not even in Rome afterward, and sometimes we were sorry that they had not prepared us more – for instance in Rome, where they have could anticipated that we would be interrogated here, or that our studies in Rome would be considered an act of conspiracy. Sometimes, when we were in prison, we thought that while we had been in the Nepomuceum college, we should have been taught at least us some boxing moves. Not that we would want to fight with those state police agents, but that in case you got hit or kicked, you would not be taken by surprise by that so much. We have never experienced any form of physical punishment since our childhood years.”