Jaroslav Řihák

“I had spent a month, perhaps two, working on gutters there. This was the worst work available down the mine as there were no protective tools there. We would crawl on our knees and after a shift we would have them so torn up that they were bleeding. We wore tall rubber boots. The ventilation was not perfect so it was also very hot down there. We were sweating and the sweat poured into our boots. When the mixture of blood and sweat begun to squelch we would take our boots off, take out a rag which we had coiled over our feet, pour it out, put the boot on and carry on in work.”

"To start with the interrogations were such that the officer behaved like he was an long-time friend. Very pleasant and understanding. The first two interrogations were similar to our meeting here. Where was I born, who are my parents, what are my interests and so on. Then he started with these interrogations where he accused me of all sorts of things. But of I would say unimportant things. That I had been meeting up with people in the American Institute who were working against the regime. Well I had. I couldn't have thrown them out, nor could they have thrown me out. So I still signed all of that. But when the more serious things started coming up, I refused to sign. The interrogator calmly continued dictating and writing as if I hadn't said a word. But then I wouldn't sign it. He said: 'That doesn't matter. You'll never get out of jail anyway. And you'll change your mind yet.' And he let me go. They took me away. They always led me to and from the interrogations with a blindfold. So I wouldn't have even found the way to my cell. They didn't take it off until at the spot. And then another interrogation. Again I refused to sign. And he said: 'I said, sign it. You'll regret this.' I didn't say anything. He pressed a button or something I guess. Two blokes came running in with their sleeves rolled up, brawny. They were chuckling like anything. I just turned a bit and saw them (and they were arguing over who would get to sock me one first)."

“There were no water taps at the cells; there was nothing to hang oneself on. There were Turkish toilets in the ground where we would do our thing as well as wash and drink water from. There was no jug with drinking water there! Apart from it there was an almost broken straw mattress in the cell. When we would lie on it, we would end up lying on concrete because the straw had rotten off. There was a single blanket there – I had to keep my hands on it while sleeping. No bathroom, no shower. Only after the end of pre-trial detention, almost four months after my arrest, did I have the chance to take a bath. Back then they transferred me from a detention cell in Příčná ulice in Brno to Orlí where there was a temporary cell for prisoners who were about to be transferred further. Only there did I get the chance to go to a bathroom. We were informed that they would call the prisoners up by their numbers and that we would then jog to the basement to shower. Our names were called up, we jogged to the showers. There was terrible hunger there. When we returned from the showers we could see garbage bins in the hallway. One of them was not fully closed and we could see old, rotting potatoes with sprouts there. I was able to take one of these potatoes from the bin and because it was not big, it fitted into my palm. When I marched back to my cell, the warden who stood by the open door stopped me and asked me what I had in my palm. I said that nothing. He hit me in my hand and the potato fell down. So he beat me up and threw me inside my cell.”

"I was a putter to start with. We had rubber boots, and during the shift we always poured blood and sweat out from them, when they started squelching. Because our knees were torn and bloodied. And of course the blood trickled down our legs. And now you'd be sweating, so sweat would trickle down too. And when a boot started squelching, you had to take it off and empty it. And the knees, how they hurt, they wouldn't heal at all. Because when you got a scab, you'd tear it up the next day. It was awful work."

"When I had about a week left to completing school, defending my diploma thesis, some men came from Brno. They put cuffs on my hands. There was a plain car standing outside the house. They brought me to it, took the cuff off one of my hands, locked it to the driver's seat and left. They closed the door, locked it and left. That was the end of my student's life. Sans the title of course. Because no one heard any more of me. Not even in the research institute. Because when I later asked for confirmation of my working years, for calculating my pension, then they wrote back to me saying they had precise records of when I started school, but despite their best efforts they could not find anywhere in the archive when I had finished. I simply disappeared."

"When I did the putting, that was quite an experience. Although the trough was rounded like this, my workplace ended here and there was the next putter's place. This putter was climbing over the trough inside. It was really narrow there and a rock fell loose from the ceiling. The ceiling was granite, and in places there was shale on the granite. In these kind of uneven pips. And when the air reached it and it was dug out, it happened that the shale would peel off the granite and fall down. While he was climbing over the trough, the pip peeled off. It was as big as half this room. And it cut him through the chest. The head with the smaller part fell into the trough and the rest fell behind the trough. When I heard the crash, I rushed upwards and I saw the second half of the body. The heap of blood, wobbling. The heart was still beating before he died."

"So as to destroy the trust in religion, the communists created an organisation called the Catholic Action. Church secretaries were installed. These Church secretaries called all the priests to a conference in Brno to recruit them for the Catholic Action. One priest I knew told me about it. He knew it was organised by the communists, not by a bishop. So him and me and some others we came up with a way to foil their plan. How to stop it. So we came to an agreement. The meeting was supposed to be in the library on Red Square. Next to the students' mensa that's there. So we came to an agreement and we started patrolling along the surrounding roads. And when we saw a priest coming up, we warned him that the event was not convened by a bishop, but by the communists."

"The trial in Prague. There were thirty-one of us convicted. Out of the thirty-one, I knew maybe four people. For instance, that Nesrovnal wasn't there. The trial of each of us was secret, not open to the public. I didn't see a single one of those thirty-one people in court. Each of us were led in and led out separately. I was ready to tell them in what way they had interrogated me. First the prosecutor spoke, and he repeated the nonsense from the protocols. Then the judge asked me my name and my place of birth. He was checking my personal data. I was able to tell him that loudly and heartily. Then he asked me if I had any remarks concerning the accusation. And I told him some three words. And even if my life depended on it, I couldn't squeeze another word out of myself. My mind was in such a throttle that I couldn't speak another word. All I could do was cry and shiver. I was condemned in about five to ten minutes. My advocate ex officio made use of that and I remember him saying: 'Honourable jury, see how the accused repents his actions and asks for this to be taken into consideration.' The prosecutor objected, saying I was judged according to the section on espionage and high treason, and that the lowest punishment for that was ten years, and that he demands that I get at least those ten years. The jury left for counsel. They came back and said that in consideration of my heartfelt repentance and my young age, they would give me an exceptionally lenient nine years sentence. One year less."