"So, everywhere they announced that the President would be here at the festival, so I thought, what if I gave the request for clemency right in his hand... it was an idea! My husband supported me in that, so he got tickets to the grandstand, because there were open auditoriums, and then there was a grandstand that was for the people, about fifty or a hundred people, and there was a place for the president. So, he got tickets to the grandstand. I waited in the grandstand for him to show up. First, his men appeared, then the president came too. So, I threw myself at him and they could lock me up for the second time. So, I actually handed him the letter, he took it from me and then it came to me from the President's office that he wouldn't forgive my dad, that he was a criminal. And that he should just bear with it. I think it was then shortened to eleven years."
"We came to the hospital, so I check in with the nurses somewhere. There were still nuns there at the time. They told me, 'You must not go to see her! We must not let anyone in, and there is a guard in front of the door.' And that I wouldn't get there anyway. Such a chubby nurse came and said, 'She's downstairs, and if your man could drop you off there, I'll open the windows and pull you in.' It was a big risk from her, but she did it. She told us where it was, so we were around the hospital from behind, it was an elevated ground floor. Tonka was a two-meter-high guy, so he took me on his shoulders and the nurse pulled me through that window. The poor people then had problems, because someone saw it and, of course, reported it. Then, they said they had some employment problems. Even the senior doctor at the time, which made me sorry."
"So many people broke in. As I say, all the closets, they threw everything out. They raided all the rooms. They were in the attic, they were everywhere, and then they took my dad right away. And my mum and me, they did not talk to us, but they locked us in the children´s room. And they put a guard in front of the door and left us there. We didn't know what was going on. We spent the night there and my mother collapsed the next day, so they took her to the Havlíčkův Brod hospital. They took me to Dolní Kralovice to the prison."
"After all, before I went to college, I had to join the youth building constructions, that was a condition. When the Brno-Havlíčkův Brod track was being built, we cut down the slopes with the pickaxes. It was quite hard work. We lived in such a camp, such a working camp, and in the morning we had to line up under the flag of the Communist youth, we had to sing the international and then we could go. I know we had two girls in the hostel who didn't go to work with us at all and still just wandered around the hostel. Then, we found out that they were informers. My parents sent me a package, we were there for a month and they couldn't visit me, so they sent me a package with a bun, the girls unpacked it and said it belonged to everyone, so they ate it most of the time. "We were already scared. We were scared because they said that if they kicked us out of the building constructions, we wouldn't get to university because it was a condition. I'd say there was a pretty tough regime."
"My dad was then listening to the radio in the attic. He moved the radio there and listened to it there. The greatest horror was when we accommodated a German woman and a Gestapo friend came to see her, that he could even hear it. Not only was the radio not so perfect back then, but there was also noise because the foreign broadcasts were disturbing, so how many times did it make such an unpleasant sound that it could be heard all over the house. In one room the Gestapo and upstairs my dad with a foreign radio station. However, he just had to do it."
Irena Košťálová, née Muchová, was born on November 27, 1930 in Prague. She grew up with two sisters, Hana and Eva, in Ledeč nad Sázavou, where their father, Karel Mucha, bought a house on the main square in the 1920s. He set up a fabric shop on the ground floor there. After the end of the World War II, Irena studied at a business school in Jihlava. In order to continue to a university, she had to join the compulsory summer job where young people were working on building constructions during the summer holidays of 1949. In the same year, their trade was nationalized. On March 29, 1951, a commando broke into their house and carried out a house raid. Irena and her mother Růžena were locked in the children’s room. Karel Mucha, meanwhile, was detained by the security authorities and taken to the regional prison in Jihlava. The mentally shaken mother was placed in isolated pre-trial detention in the Havlíčkův Brod hospital, where she was guarded under strict supervision by security forces. Irena was taken to custody in Dolní Kralovice, where Security also stored her sister Eva that day. The eldest daughter Hana who was in Prague, spent several days in the Pankrác prison. She was also arrested. All three sisters were transported to Jihlava and gradually subjected to interrogations. In less than a month, they were released and Irena managed to secretly visit her sick mother. The People’s Court in Ledeč nad Sázavou was held on May 25, 1951 and sentenced, with the participation of the general public, the merchant Karel Mucha to twenty years in prison for hiding and not offering textiles and other goods in his house for purchase after nationalization. Karel Mucha was serving his sentence in Cheb and in Pilsen-Bory, where he was nominated for parole. However, the Communist Party in Ledeč nad Sázavou rejected this request. He was transferred to Vykmanov u Ostrova in poor health in 1961, where he died on July 29, 1962. It happened exactly four months before his release, as his sentence was reduced to eleven years and eight months after an announced amnesty in 1953. All three sisters first lived together in a student room in Prague, where their mother lived with them after being released from the hospital. They were not allowed to return to Ledeč nad Sázavou, and in the meantime their house was taken over by a communist party secretary. Both Irena and Eva were expelled from university and the eldest Hana had to leave her job in a foreign company. Initially, they worked in manual occupations, later in skilled labor, although their class background was often challenged. After 1990, Karel Mucha was rehabilitated by the District Court in Havlíčkův Brod. In the restitution proceedings, the Mucha sisters managed to get back their birth house on Ledeč Square, which they first rented. Then they sold the entire property. In 2007, a memorial plaque dedicated to KPV (The confederation of political prisoners of Czechoslovakia) to the victims of political oppression in the 1950s took part in Ledeč nad Sázavou. The witness lived in Karlovy Vary at the time of filming (July 2020).
With the advancing front, German families also retreated. A German woman with her daughter Karin were accommodated by the Mucha family, followed by the commander of the Ledeč Gestapo
With the advancing front, German families also retreated. A German woman with her daughter Karin were accommodated by the Mucha family, followed by the commander of the Ledeč Gestapo
Eva Muchová's wedding, to which Karel Mucha was released from prison for a few days. Of the eleven consecutive years of imprisonment, this is the only photograph by Karel Mucha, where he is also captured together with his family.
Eva Muchová's wedding, to which Karel Mucha was released from prison for a few days. Of the eleven consecutive years of imprisonment, this is the only photograph by Karel Mucha, where he is also captured together with his family.
In February 2007, the Confederation of Political Prisoners held a ceremonial unveiling of a memorial plaque in Ledeč nad Sázavou, which, after disputes with the city leadership, was finally placed on the building of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. In the photo M. Růžička, M. Vystrčil and Irena Košťálová maiden name Muchová
In February 2007, the Confederation of Political Prisoners held a ceremonial unveiling of a memorial plaque in Ledeč nad Sázavou, which, after disputes with the city leadership, was finally placed on the building of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. In the photo M. Růžička, M. Vystrčil and Irena Košťálová maiden name Muchová
The building of the house No. 71 underwent extensive construction modifications. However, the attic space was allegedly left unchanged. It was here that Karel Mucha was supposed to have created a hiding place, where he stored the fabrics, and which was later revealed by a house raid by the State Security, October 2020
The building of the house No. 71 underwent extensive construction modifications. However, the attic space was allegedly left unchanged. It was here that Karel Mucha was supposed to have created a hiding place, where he stored the fabrics, and which was later revealed by a house raid by the State Security, October 2020
From the roof dormer of the house No. 71 you can see Husovo náměstí and also the building of the town hall, where the District Prosecutor's Office Ledeč nad Sázavou was located until 1960, October 2020
From the roof dormer of the house No. 71 you can see Husovo náměstí and also the building of the town hall, where the District Prosecutor's Office Ledeč nad Sázavou was located until 1960, October 2020
Former Hotel Koželužna in Ledeč nad Sázavou, where a court trial with the accused businessman Karel Mucha took place on May 25, 1951 from 9 a.m. with the participation of the general public, October 2020
Former Hotel Koželužna in Ledeč nad Sázavou, where a court trial with the accused businessman Karel Mucha took place on May 25, 1951 from 9 a.m. with the participation of the general public, October 2020
