Josef Vlček

“I developed heart problems. They took me to a doctor who said that it was ischemic cardiac disease. They led me back to my cell, and in the evening the captain came for me to interrogate me. I told him that I was feeling very sick and that I was afraid I might die there. He said: ´It doesn’t matter if you kick the bucket now or later.´ He interrogated me. It was harsh. He kept me there for a long time. The case ended quickly because at that time, our government had some talks with the Vatican in Rome. Since the trial with us was so widely known, Radio Free Europe learned about our arrest immediately. It was a slack season in politics at that time, and therefore they were dealing with our case promptly, informing who was arrested and what had happened and so on, and the Holy Father thus knew about it. He demanded that they release us from the Olomouc trial immediately. And so they came in there and told me to take all my things, my toothbrush and everything I had with me. I had to go to the office to sign a declaration that I would not talk about anything. They didn’t say anything at all. “When we need something from you, we will find you.” And they kicked me out onto the street (I had sandals and a shirt and shorts, and there was snow outside).”

“My Mom became a widow three times. She spent only a short time with her first husband. He was a miner and he died shortly after their wedding due to the so-called “quick tuberculosis”. Then she married a widower. He was an innkeeper and he had three children. When the war broke out, he joined the army and he was one of the first soldiers who got seriously wounded. He died in a military hospital in Vienna. My Mom was still able to go there to visit him. She travelled there with an infant in her arms, who was the fourth child. She had three stepchildren and this fourth baby, who became half-orphaned within several weeks. Since she was not able to survive alone with four children during the war, Mom married a local teacher, who was a widower and had one daughter. This daughter was away from home studying, and therefore we didn’t see her much.”

“We were building a culture centre in Ostrava. We were doing some digging and concrete placing. It was hard work, but still, it was not so bad. They would always escort us there and then take us back. The workplace was surrounded by a high barbwire fence, even when the guards walked around. Some boys were playing right behind the fence. One of them kicked a ball, and the ball landed on our side of the fence. Suddenly we hear the boy’s voice from behind the fence: ´Mr. Thief, could you please throw the ball back to us?´ So, we knew how we were described”.

“I was on vacation in Yugoslavia at that time, it was a free country, and while there I met some people whom I knew from the times of the prewar Yugoslavia. Father Špan, who was a Salesian, and several lay persons. They informed me about the terrible situation under the communist government in Slovenia. They told me about murders of priests. In Slovenia, communists had murdered over two hundred priests. I returned home full of this news and I focused my activity in this way: I mentioned it in lectures, I wrote some articles but nobody published them, because the unified National Front had already been in power.”

“I was about to leave. The Party confirmed my execution and the same applied to Dr. Valena (JUDr. František Valena). He gave me a letter from my wife with my daughter’s photo and told me that I was a fool and that I could avoid it. Before he had told me that, the Party had decided that we would be executed. He said: ´But you will not go to the gallows anymore, it’s done in a different way these days.´ For half an hour he was then telling me about the wooden planks they use, and so on. And then he showed me this picture. Plain extortion. In my brain I began thinking... It was horror. I was not even able to pray. Now he told me: ´You would have to work as a narc. You enjoy the trust of the bishops. We would come to see you once in a while and learn something about the situation in the church.´ He tried to break me this way. He said that if I signed it, I would be able to go home within three weeks. It was terrible.”