Miloš Blažek

“In 1944, that was when the Allies were already invading Europe (6th June 1944), and we were at the Lužnice [River] in July. We were camping down under Vobůrka, where we’d had our camp twice in the past years - in ’38 and in ’39. So we knew it there, so out of curiosity we went to see what it looked like after all those years. And so in tents - we didn’t have platforms of course, just ordinary tents for two - we camped on a meadow. And I remember that it was precisely the 20th of July 1944 when we received the news from Bechyně (that was about not quite half an hour from Bechyně to the camp under Vobůrka, where we were), that there’d been an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler.”

“The one StB man... well, they took what they needed, simply. For instance, the one took the hat: ‘You won’t be needing that.’ I had the Scout hat hung up by the side like this. ‘Well you won’t be needing that.’ And the other one - he looked a bit like [...] he was somewhat intelligent or something, with glasses, a young boy he was - he also took a book from the Czech History series. I’d have to think back, what the exact name of the book was, but... German Colonisation in the Czech Land - something like that it was called. ‘You won’t be needing that either...’ ”

“They took my picture from all sides - the right, the left, the front - and then they put me in custody, that I’m subverting the state. They made it up as ‘propagating a bourgeoise and religious ideology’ and as ‘subversion of the state’. That year, it must be said, subversion of the state was a new section of the law. Beforehand, the Scout groups, and there were a lot of them (from 1948 to 1959 there were a lot of arrests), they were all judged according to the section ‘high treason’, which came with harsh sentences. Those were sentences of twenty years or more, or even sentences of... executions, simply. Whereas they realised, the comrades, that for things like that it was a bit over the top, and so they made a new section, § 49a ‘subversion of the state’, which was from one to ten years.”

“Suddenly we had a picture of Hitler there. I said: ‘We never had this picture in our home, show it to me.’ - ‘But that is... We found it there as well.’ And they didn’t show it to me. Then when it came to the trial at Charles Square - that was one of those, as it was called, monster trials pretty much, because I had microphones in front of me and it was in the biggest court room, number 51 or 54 I think, a big room. It was crammed full. As I looked out of the corner of my eye, none of my friends, none of the teachers were there, but other people. Later I found out they had invited the so-called organised public - basically, workers from various factories. And when it came to this point, I said: ‘Mr. Chairman, I asked the officers of State Security three times to show me the picture, because I claim, and I can prove this with a number of live witnesses, that that picture never hung in our home.’ He said: ‘Everyone keeps that which he likes.’ To which the working rabble reacted: ‘Ha, ha, ha, ha.’ That’s how they laughed.”

“Some of the interrogations were pretty touch. I remember how when I was in Ruzyně, we could tell according to the clock at Loreta what the time was, that it was getting close to midnight. And the interrogator, the so-called reporter, what we had to call him, kept wanting me to own up to something, what we did, how we subverted the state, how we distributed pamphlets and all sorts of jokes... what seditious slander we’d said. And he kept pressing me more and more, and it started getting annoying, but I stayed calm. And when it was really late, I said: ‘So write down whatever you want!’ I pretended to be angry, that I’d had enough. He’d had his fill too, the StB man, so he took the papers, folded them and said: ‘We’ll continue in the morning.’ ”

“But that wasn’t everything! Also the following year, 1941 - the regime had already gotten pretty tough by then - we were back at Radětice near Bechyně, and it was registered as a student’s summer work camp. We didn’t sleep in tents like in the previous years, but in a granary. There were beds - straw mattresses - and we weathered it out there. But it was a real Scout camp, because Scout Promises were taken there, even with the (Czechoslovak) flag, which was dropped down from a tree just before the taking of the Promise. And it worked!”

“We were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, and we kept in touch, we kept in contact with each other, we went on trips, because our principle was that no regime can ban personal friendship.”

“I soon realised the StB men [State Security - transl.] were following me, or us. I realised it, because when I was at school for instance, then the phone rang, and they asked for Blažek. I happened to be close to the phone, it was in the staff room, and when I said ‘here’, they hang up. That happened to me two or three times. And also, when I came home, I could tell that someone had been there. Not Mum... I was home alone at the time, Mum was older and had gone to a rest home. So I came home - the flat was turned completely inside out, as one would say. Everything was emptied out, it must’ve been done in a hurry, they kept looking for something and they had to leave in a hurry, because I surprised them.”