Ladislav Hylena

“Before you entered the village, Hora Sv. Kateřiny, there was a beautiful Gothic chapel at the edge. It was missing a roof. So we brought in planks, cement. I was already a bricklayer in 1960, I wanted to repair from a structural perspective. We brought in cement, Eternit, we installed a temporary door. Then one time I’m on my way home from work, and I see – the chapel’s gone. The Communists came there with a bulldozer and ploughed the chapel away. We found out in Prague that it’s a historical building, listed. Václav Huml – he was a heritage worker – had the book in which the chapel was recorded. The Communists demolished it. They didn’t even tell Dad to take his materials away. They took it all down.”

“In those 35 or so years, no one came to the church, just our family. My brother and I served at the altar, Dad learnt to play the organ, Mum and the girls sang from downstairs. It was a wonderful place, that little church. When we came there, half the tower was missing. We repaired that first. Then the roof on the church was bad, me and my brothers laid the whole roof, no one helped at all. We put a whole new roof on it.”

“It was in the 1950s and they imprisoned our dad, because all of us were going to church. Well, they imprisoned dad, and we were going through the village. Then there was 1953 and food ration stamps for cigarettes, and beer, meat and everything, were introduced. Since my mom could not give alcohol and cigarettes to people, she was instead giving it to us, little boys, and we were then going to the guys in the pub and we were giving them coupons for cigarettes, and beer and liquor, and they in turn were giving us coupons for meat, sugar and bread. In this way, we got a bit more food at home, because otherwise we were going begging around the village, since dad did not get any money from the prison.”

“Bishops wrote a declaration that we were to trust God and that we should not get involved with Pacem in terris. They were those who had simply told the communists that they would cooperate with them. They had everything. Dad did not want to cooperate with the communists in any case, he wanted to remain a believer and we printed those pastoral letters. I don’t know where dad managed to print them. We, boys, served as altar boys, and we were thus going to various churches in Šumava and dad would always give us the pastoral letters in our pockets and we would go to the sacristy and place the document there. The Holy Mass then proceeded as usual. The priest went up to the pulpit and read the pastoral letter and everything was fine. When the Holy Mass was over, two communists, or policemen in leather coats, I don’t know who they were, came to the sacristy: ‘Give us that pastoral letter. Who brought it here?’ ‘I don’t know, it was here, and it was my duty to read it.’ They took the pastoral letter from the priest, they tore it to pieces in front of him and threw it away. But when we came to another church, the pastoral letter was there again, but we never said that it was us who had brought it there.”

“For the funeral, they brought dad in a Tatraplan car to the church. He was not allowed to enter the church, and when we came out, dad placed his hand on the little coffin. It was in Strakonice, because corpses were not transported at that time. He (brother – transl.’s note) was there in the hospital, he had some troubles with breathing, and he died. They placed him into a little coffin and dad carried this coffin. So there was a warden, then dad with the little coffin, a second warden, and my mom followed them. There were already five of us children and when we wanted to shake hands with dad we were always pushed back. We walked toward the cemetery and we placed the coffin into the grave. Dad covered his son with earth with his bare hands. And then we walked back from the cemetery, and there was dad walking with the warden, with wardens on both sides. We came out of the cemetery. The Tatraplan car was waiting there. My mom wanted to kiss dad. They pushed her away. We wanted to greet dad, too, and they threw us away. They made dad get into the car, he left, and we did not see him again.”