I was a court stenographer during the trial. All I wrote were lies

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Alena Grušková was born on June 10, 1932 in Ostrava. Her father Bohuš Bittner was a policeman, but he was arrested at the end of the war and dismissed from the police. Many of their relatives and friends have died in concentration camps. Alena suffered a serious injury during the bombing of Ostrava in 1944 and she witnessed many of the events related to World War Two in the region of Ostrava. Her parents and relatives were active in the Sokol movement. In 1948 she took part in the 11th All Sokol Rally in Prague. She was among those who openly expressed their disapproval with the communist take over of power in Czechoslovakia. As she was leaving the stadium, she was beaten so brutally that she lost her tooth. After two years of study at a trade academy she began working as a secretary. Since she was skilled in stenography, Alena and her friend were selected to work as court reporters for the court trial “Buchal and Co.” This court trial took place in summer 1950 in Ostrava and it followed after a series of show trials in which the communists were taking revenge on their opponents. She was an eye witness to what had happened in the Čapek Sokol gym in Ostrava during the trial because she was there to make a verbatim record. Until her retirement she worked as a secretary and later as an archivist in a chemical factory in Ostrava - Hrušov. Alena Grušková died in 2020.