Věra Tučková

* 1924

  • "And it was February 3rd. At night, I dreamed that my father was being taken away in an ambulance. I kept thinking about him, I couldn't get away from it, I kept seeing him in front of me and it was terrible for me. I said to my mother: 'Dad's not coming back, he's really not coming back to us.' On the third night I dreamed he was being taken in an ambulance, and on the fourth we got a telegram saying he was dead. And if we want a funeral in Valdice or in Prague. We said that in Prague, because I could never go to Valdice. They finally told us yes, 'but the coffin will be sealed and you won't see him'. So, we don't know if he was in that coffin at all. They didn't tell us when the funeral would be until late Monday afternoon when they called us saying the funeral would be early Tuesday morning. We couldn't let his family, sisters, brothers, grandfather know when dad's funeral would be, and none of them were at the funeral either. The funeral hall was completely packed, the cremation. Besides, the preacher was not allowed to speak, the singers were not allowed to sing, there was only silence and music playing. And they chose that [music] because we didn't have the option. So, they were playing their music and someone reported that it was full of people, and two police cars came and stood among the people, waiting for some provocation to be made somewhere. And there was silence. Total silence the whole time the music was playing.'

  • "Then they gave him permission, suddenly permission came from Pardubice that we could bring him a sweater and warm socks, which really surprised us, because they didn't let anyone go anywhere. So, I took it [sweater and socks] and drove to Pardubice and arrived at the prison, there was an iron gate, so I rang the bell. Two police officers opened for me, asking what I wanted. I told them we got permission to bring the package to dad. They closed the door and came back after a while and told me to go on. I went to the prison commandant and gave him the package. He asked me if I had been to any other place. I said that I didn't talk to anyone, that I arrived and went straight there. He told me that my dad was next door from his door. I begged him to at least show him to me through the peephole. He said: 'I can't, it's strictly forbidden!' That was the prison commandant. I said we had dad take pictures of his grandkids and sent them to him, did he get them? He opened the desk, pulled out a photo and showed it to me. I said: 'And you didn't leave it to him?' And he said: 'No! We just showed it to him and he can't have it.' And he put it back into the table again."

  • "He tells me: 'The urn will not be given to you, because five hundred people came to listen to your father every Sunday afternoon, and sometimes even six hundred, and he had anti-state speeches.' But I don't know what exactly, he didn't say that. 'We can't allow you to put him somewhere in the grave, because bouquets and wreaths would be worn there.' I said: 'Are you afraid of the dead?' They didn't answer me at all and kicked me out. So, I went. We didn't get the urn. We don't know where they put it. Today, my sister and I think about it and say that dad was probably not in the coffin at all. That the coffin was sealed and they buried him somewhere in Valdice and gave us only an empty coffin. There probably weren't any ashes either, because our acquaintance, who was preparing corpses for the furnace for burning in the cremation... He wanted to be by the coffin they brought my dad in, and they kicked him out. He wasn't supposed to be there, so he couldn't see if it was there or not. So, if dad was there or not, no one knows."

  • "In Valdice. That was the worst prison, there were murderers there. We got there, my husband went with us, he thought they would let him in, but he didn't have a permit. Only my brother and I, and my husband had to stay outside. I wouldn't wish it to anyone, really. That was as far as there is from you to here. Here was a wooden railing, there was a thickly barred window. We stood behind the bar screen, one police officer next to us, the other next to Pavel. Dad was brought by two police officers. I didn't recognize my father. He really was a wreck: completely white, thin and so bad looking that I almost cried. My brother did not say a word. All we could do for him was say greetings from our mother, sisters and brother. Otherwise, we couldn't talk to him. I said to him: 'Dad, are you sick?' And he said that he had pains in his chest and stomach. I thought it was the end and that he would never come back to us."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Cheb, 08.06.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 02:17:07
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
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The last visit to the imprisoned preacher. It wasn‘t a dad, it was a skeleton

Věra Tučková Burgetová, 1943
Věra Tučková Burgetová, 1943
zdroj: archive of the witness

Věra Tučková, née Burgetová, was born on April 23, 1924 in the village Lipová in Prostějov district. She grew up in a large and strongly religious family. Her father, Cyril Burget, worked as a Baptist missionary in Vysoké Mýto, where thanks to him, the Baptist Christian congregation was established. He also managed to do this in 1929 in Kroměříž, where his family also moved and where the witness graduated from business school there. During World War II, the protectorate authorities totally deployed her to nearby Hulín, where she also lived through the dramatic end of the war. Cyril Burget actively participated in the anti-fascist resistance during the German occupation, first as a leader of an underground movement unit and from 1944 he commanded the partisan group Grado, with which he was to participate in the liberation of Kroměříž. In 1946, he became a spiritual preacher in the Baptist church in Vinohrady and later published a Czech Baptist magazine called Slova pro život (Words for life), which was later banned by the communist regime. He was immediately elected the secretary of the Fraternal Unity of Baptists in Czechoslovakia and briefly became its chairman. In June 1952, however, he was arrested by State Security and after a year spent in pre-trial detention, he appeared in a Kangaroo court with representatives of the Baptist Church. The Communist judiciary sentenced Cyril Burget to seven years in prison, and he served his sentence in the Valdice prison, where a witness visited him at the beginning of 1954, just before his death. Cyril Burget died on February 4, 1954. According to the funeral service report, he was soon cremated and the last farewell took place under the strict supervision of the security authorities. The father‘s sealed urn with ashes was never given to the family, which is why the witness and her sister believe that his body was buried in the closed prison cemetery in Valdice. In 2005, a ceremonial unveiling of a commemorative plaque took place in the courtyard of the prayer hall of the Baptist church in Vinohrady, Prague. The witness worked for many years as an accountant for emergency service and lived in Cheb at the time of filming (June 2022).