"I was a volunteer fireman, and back then before 1948 I had taken part in a rescue course. It was first aid training, but the firemen called it a rescue course. During the course I met a guy from Rokytnice, and as we talked to each other and he found out more about my views, I learnt from him that they were already breaking communist notice-boards and printing pamphlets and distributing the pastoral letter of archbishop Beran. Their activity was more Christian-oriented. We agreed on it, and I created a pamphlet against the communists, and they printed it and distributed it. This was my anti-communist activity – pamphlets and distribution of pastoral letters."
"My friend and schoolmate had an uncle, and this uncle owned a so-called Pečka´s hamlet in Troják in the Hostýn Hills. There was a chalet and a dining-hall. The premises were even advertised in commercials in the cinema. Those who could afford it were going there for holidays or weekends. Milan Sedlák´s uncle worked there as the manager. We used to go there, too. There were also some three older guys, like Kamil Špaček, whom I remember, who were over twenty and who were preparing to cross the state border. I had a drum revolver, and when they were about to leave, I gave it to Kamil. Money was not a problem, but there was a problem with feeding these boys. Therefore I told my mom everything about it. We didn’t have any secrets. We had been taught to say everything. Mom would always receive food ration stamps for me, since it was no problem for her to get it in the shop. The stamps were always pasted onto sheets of paper at the end of each month and then handed over to the town administration office. Based on this, vouchers for rations were then distributed, and a certain extra amount was always added to. Thus it was possible for her to get some stamps from the shop and hand them over to Milan Sedlák's uncle. In addition to my other activities I was thus linked to the group in Troják. When the prosecutor finished reading the allegations against us, she added: ´I extend the charges against František Přeslička for criminal activity of the group Hostýn Hills - Troják. (the group Hostýn Hills – Hory hostýnské – ed.’s note). The other minors got sentenced to five years, and I was the only one to get an eight-year sentence. Since we were minors, the sentences were then commuted nearly by half."
"My mom was devastated by it, because we had already had one such experience. That was on August 4, 1949 - a Western soldier had been there a month earlier. There was a street called Trávník on the corner, and Oldřich Vodička, who had been in the motorized unit, came back there. Naturally, he returned riding in a jeep. The Posselt family, who were representatives of the Jawa motorcycle company in Šírava, had been taking care of his workshop in Trávník, from which he had left to fight the Germans. He had been arrested and beaten to death a month before my arrest. He had already been dead when I was arrested. People knew that he had not survived the interrogations. What could my mom think when she learnt that I had been arrested by the StB?"
"We were under surveillance. What especially complicated our situation was that our son was adopted. The teacher eventually came to talk to my wife: ´You know, he would be the only one to take the religion class. Don’t send him there. Don’t do it, or they would take him away from you.´ There was intimidation like that."
František Přeslička was born in 1933 in Přerov. Their family grocery shop was confiscated by the state after the communist coup in February 1948. His grandfather, who had founded the shop, died of brain stroke shortly after. When he was only fifteen years old, František became involved in dissemination of anti-communist pamphlets. He also handed over a revolver with thirty cartridges to Kamil Špaček, who was preparing an escape over the border with his friends. František was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment for this in a group trial titled František Petrů and Co., but the penalty was shortened to half since he was a minor. He spent more than two years in a detention facility for young delinquents in Zámrsk, where the majority of the internees were young people who had been sentenced for their activities against the communist regime. He was released in 1952 after two years and four months. It took him several years before he was able to return to his profession as a salesman. Shortly after the fall of the communist regime he was co-opted to the position of the vice-mayor of Přerov. In 1991 he became the chairman of the Přerov chapter of the Confederation of Political Prisoners, and he has been in the position up to now. František Přeslička died on 25 February 2018.
