František Horák

"We already knew. We listened to the radio there too. Radio Free Europe was reporting that political prisoners were disappearing. That they were probably being taken to somewhere in Russia. Meanwhile, they were taking them to Koloděje. That's where they kept Švermová. At first, we didn't want to believe this would happen. Slánský! But it was only there, in Koloděje, for a short time, maybe for about two months. Suddenly we saw a rocket at night. They fired a rocket. Someone jumped over the wall that surrounded the castle and the park. A bit higher than a meter. He jumped into the garden, into the park, and of course our people found out, so they fired a rocket. He jumped back again, there was a car there, and we weren't allowed to shoot outside, so there was nothing we could do. We weren't allowed to shoot. He jumped back in the car and drove off. And then they announced that they were locked up in Koloděje. That was the very same day at night, they moved everything out, cleared out one floor in Ruzyně, and everything that was in Koloděje was taken there overnight."

"There was an entrance to an office and from that office to another office, and they had him [Slánský] in the other one. And in the first one there were some Russian advisers. So they took him [Slánský] there, put him in the office, and the interrogator went out to consult someone. There was a door leading to the Russians, so Slánský took advantage of that, and as soon as the interrogator left, he slammed the door behind him, and as there was a key, he finally also locked it and he managed to hang himself. There were little windows which had little strings on them. He pulled the string off and wound it up. That was really crazy, you know. Suddenly they couldn't get in, the door was very sturdy, so we couldn’t break it down. There was such a big fuss. I went there too. We didn't know what to do or how to get in. So I remembered something and I ran up the stairs. There were elevators, but it was only from the third floor, and so I took the stairs to the courtyard. The convicts were chopping wood there, and I grabbed an ax and went up again and we broke the door down and Slánský was already hanging. So we cut the string right away, of course there were doctors there, and everything was very rushed. But it didn't take long, they resuscitated him. We just cut the string and it was fine."