“My mother milked cows in the eighth month of pregnancy. Because there was a dusting of snow outside, we found out that we were watched at night. Our house was surrounded, outside under the windows and behind the door and behind the other door. And they watched the yard if we took a little milk, if my mom didn't pick up a drop of cream for me... So even at night we were scolded by the local communists who might have wanted to starv us.”
“I remember Dad still telling from the camp, like when there was a 'counter-revolution' in Hungary in 1956, as the Imre Nagy was hanged there. So they were afraid, everyone was afraid in the republic. It was perhaps gendarmerie and military mobilization and prison service; they were all mobilized. Everyone was armed, and everyone was expecting something to go wrong in Budapest. The day that this broke out, and when it got settled there somehow, all the prisoners in all the camps in Pribram stood outside in rags all night, with armed guards from all sides facing them. The watchtowers and everyone was armed, and they stood with their bare hands in front of those barracks. They were afraid even in those prisons that there would be a revolt. They learned what was happening there. It was transferred to the barracks through the work. They were scared, they were really scared, then. So they stood there all night. Then it was raining in the morning too.”
“When they locked up dad, or arrested him, halfway between Bučovice and Heřmanice on the road when he was riding a horse with a horse. He had to turn around and go home to tie the horses wearing his high boots, and Hubertus coat. He wasn't allowed to take anything or change his clothes, he just went to serve three years in prison with only what he had in his pocket. At that time my mother was eight months pregnant.”
“I went from school in Spytice, it was on November 29, 1955, and there were two black cars on the green near the bell tower. It was already afternoon; we had an afternoon school and it was evening and it was getting dark early in November and the weather was still cloudy. And I walked from the village green across the pasture to the back of the farmhouse, and behind one of the gates in front of that barn's shield was a policeman in a blue uniform, standing there waiting. Well, I came home, so I looked, I knew, because everything was talked about at home. I was already informed what was going to happen. Grandpa always informed me of everything... and I met my dad on the porch. We just said goodbye and then I didn't see him for three years. At home it was all just crying and sorrows.”
“He (dad) was on the third, in Bytíz. So he first went down in a mine like a miner and said it was better, because no guards had ever gone down there, and civilians had always gone down with them. Normal miners who went to work there. There he got into conversation with different people and learned different things, and he also learned that his dad died on December 1956. In 1956 mum wrote it to him in a letter asking them to release him to attend the funeral, and the letters were destroyed by censorship. They didn't even reach Dad, never got delivered to him. And he only learnt that his dad had died in three months down from a known prisoner down the shaft, who came from our neighborhood in Vilémov, Točice, he was named Mr. Kudrna, and they wrote it to him too. But there was no censorship, and he only learned of that letter afterwards. And down below the ground he only told Dad. So that is how dad learned that his own father had died. And grandpa actually died because of my dad's arrest and all the stress.”
“We couldn't choose the lawyer, who was appointed in court. They gave a lawyer to my dad, who of course did not care at all. So when it was that year, we still took it. When he got a year sentence, we accepted it. We thought it was not alll that bad. But to those comrades it did not seem enough, so the prosecutor appealed, dad did not. The prosecutor appealed,and in two months we got two years more.”
Václav Tuček was born on 6 August 1946 and grew up on a family farm in Bučovice near Heřmanice. He experienced family persecution since his childhood, when his father Zdenek was fined since 1949 for failing to comply with prescribed deliveries, which amounted to two hundred thousand crowns, and because of disagreement with joining the united agricultural cooperative was arrested on 29 November 1955 together with other local farmers and sentenced for sabotage to three years in prison, a ban on staying in the municipality and adjacent municipalities, a loss of honorary civil rights for five years, a ban on working in agriculture for five years and forfeiture of wealth. He served his sentence for half a year in the prison in Chrudim and the rest in a correctional labour camp in Bytíz, where he worked as a muggle in uranium mines. His father‘s arrest led to a deterioration in the health of his grandfather, who died in December 1956. However, he learned of his death only a few months later from a friend in the mines. In November 1958 he was released and after his return he found a three-year-old son Zdeněk at home, who was born just after his arrest. After his arrival, he began working in the mining industry for geological exploration and never returned to agriculture. After 1989 he became the mayor of Heřmanice in the first free elections, among other things he was an active member of the Confederation of Political Prisoners and lectured on injustice in secondary schools. Václav Tuček was not allowed to study at a secondary school and signed to the agricultural school. Since the 1970s he worked at the Potato Research Institute in Havlíčkův Brod, thanks to which he gradually completed his education despite the opposition of the representatives of the National Committee in Vilémov. Even the witness‘s first-born son, Aleš, was banned from studying the humanities because of his class background. Since 1993, Václav Tuček worked at the District Land Office in Havlíčkův Brod and dealt with restitution. Václav Tuček died on 25 September 2021.
"Táta na Svoboďáku" - Zdeněk Tuček in a tractor Svoboda purchased in 1939, which was confiscated in February 1950 during purchasing of machines in Čáslav
"Táta na Svoboďáku" - Zdeněk Tuček in a tractor Svoboda purchased in 1939, which was confiscated in February 1950 during purchasing of machines in Čáslav
The 1931 motorcycle was owned by the Tuček family in Bučovice as one of the first. On the photo is grandfather Václav and uncle Karel Procházka from Krnov
The 1931 motorcycle was owned by the Tuček family in Bučovice as one of the first. On the photo is grandfather Václav and uncle Karel Procházka from Krnov
The Tucek family immortalized in their cherry orchard under a barn. Probably the last summer before Zdeněk Tuček was arrested (in a striped shirt on the right)
The Tucek family immortalized in their cherry orchard under a barn. Probably the last summer before Zdeněk Tuček was arrested (in a striped shirt on the right)
Probably the first photograph of the Tuček family after his father's return from prison (Václav on the left, next to his mother with his son Zdeněk and his father on the right)
Probably the first photograph of the Tuček family after his father's return from prison (Václav on the left, next to his mother with his son Zdeněk and his father on the right)
Václav Tuček in the garden in the fifties with his grandmother Marie. "I did everything with my grandmother when my dad was away. We went to the woods together," recalls Václav Tuček
Václav Tuček in the garden in the fifties with his grandmother Marie. "I did everything with my grandmother when my dad was away. We went to the woods together," recalls Václav Tuček
Zdeněk Tuček was an active member of the Confederation of Political Prisoners and depicted first-hand persecution and Příbram camps for high school students (first photo on right) in November 2006
Zdeněk Tuček was an active member of the Confederation of Political Prisoners and depicted first-hand persecution and Příbram camps for high school students (first photo on right) in November 2006
After serving his sentence, Zdeněk Tuček never returned to agriculture. He worked on geological exploration. In the photo of the drilling rig first from the right
After serving his sentence, Zdeněk Tuček never returned to agriculture. He worked on geological exploration. In the photo of the drilling rig first from the right
