“First of all it was a long journey. To keep it cheap, we rode in plankers - local trains. It wasn’t as far to Pardubice, where Mum was, but even so... It was a pretty long trip to Rtyně. Then we stood around in front of the gatehouse. They ignored us until the last moment, then they graciously let us into the waiting room. I remember there was this circle in Pardubice - I can see it as if it was now - Trust the Party, comrades, with a man holding a submachine-gun in the middle, aiming down the barrel. I don’t know who made that joke, I really don’t. There were tables in the prison, we sat on one side, and guard - prisoner, guard - prisoner sat on the other. Down to the minute, the guard watched everything. You couldn’t speak at all, just about banalities, otherwise they’d end the visit. It’s hard to describe.... You always went home more depressed than anything.”
“The building was the district cultural centre. So when it was dissolved, it went back to the town’s property. The deputy mayor of Šumperk at the time happened to be one good person, whom I met. He proposed that it could be made into a gallery. And because he had seen Jílek’s sculptures, he said: ‘It could be the Jiří Jílek Gallery.’ I had worked with Jiří Jílek for ten years, I had photographed his works throughout the years, and I planned to publish ten albums of photographs, give them to some friends and institutions. He proposed that we make a book out of it, so it turned into a monograph with 283 black-and-white of my photos in A4, and I wrote the accompanying text to it. And this gallery was established. We set up a small permanent exhibition, that’s one room, and the other, smaller one, has twelve statues by Jiří Jílek, two paintings, a few drawings. It belongs to the town, it’s rented by the culture house. The programme used to be prepared by this one girl, but she leaving in 1994 and she said: ‘So you take it.’ I was introducing one exhibition there, I was talking about the need for a clear programme... I said something of the sort, and she retorted: ‘So you take it.’ I said: ‘Goodness, this’ll be terrible.’ Well, and I’ve been doing it for twenty-two years now. I have someone there every month - one exhibition ends on Sunday, and the next begins on Wednesday.”
“We stayed with our uncle until the end of the school year. He sent my brother to a Pioneer camp, although he was a Scout. They got into a fight with the Pioneers and chucked them into the stream... So I stayed all alone, just with a friend... My uncle came along and said: ‘You know, you’re alone here, Vláďa’s with other children, I’ll take you to be with other children too.’ And he took me to be with the children of the Type B children’s home in Hradčany. And he said: ‘I’ll come and pick you up.’ So the holidays ended, they called me up, that I was leaving, so I thought it was my uncle. We got in a car with some other children - preschoolers. And we set off down the Benešov Road goodness knows where. In Olešovice we turned... It was the house of Přemysl Pittera, he used to care for children there, but they’d confiscated it and it was a children’s home for preschoolers at the time. All the children stayed there, we had lunch there and carried on. We came to the children’s home in Pyšely, and my brother was already there. But our uncle was nowhere to be found, of course, not a word from him. Then my brother stopped me one time, he was with the older boys around seventh to eighth class, I was third, fourth class. We hardly saw each other. When we met in the corridor, he said: ‘Look, we’re escaping tomorrow.’ - ‘Okay, brother, let’s escape.’ So we did, and we went to our uncle in Prague. He scratched his head, took us back. We never saw after that. That was the year fifty-three, and the next time I saw him was at Grandma’s funeral in seventy-three. In the meantime he had built himself a grand career, he was chief of the militia at ČKD, he had a villa in Jezerka. He’d completed his assignment, he’d finished off his brother.”
Miroslav Koval was born on 26 November 1944 in Havlíčkův Brod. His parents were Marie, née Vlčková, and Josef, né Katzer - his father decided to change his surname after the war. The witness had an older brother. The family lived in Humpolec until 1946, when they moved to Litoměřice because of the father’s job - he worked at a court. His mother was active in the Church, she organised spiritual exercises (retreats) and apparently participated in the landing of a plane that was to take a bishop into emigration. She was arrested in 1952. In March 1953 his father was to stand witness in the trial with his wife, but his actions were re-evaluated and he was also sentenced to prison - for 7 years, whereas Miroslav’s mother was given 14. The Koval brothers were looked after by a family friend and then by his uncle’s father, who sent them to a children’s home soon after. The witness stayed there until 1960, when he completed primary school and his parents were released from prison (his mother by amnesty). The family lived in a squalid flat in Litoměřice, until they found a better one in 1966 with the help of people in the Church. Their new residence also became the meeting place of various Church officials. The witness trained as a chemical production worker in Litoměřice and was then employed at the rubber plant in Kralupy nad Vltavou; he completed a secondary-level evening school at the Litoměřice brewery. In 1965 he passed the entrance exams to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he earned his degree in 1971. He met his future wife Anežka at the school, and after graduation the couple moved to Sobotín near Šumperk. He worked with his wife’s father, sculptor Jiří Jílek, for ten years; he struggled for a living as a free artist. Since 1994 he worked as the curator of the Jiří Jílek Gallery in Šumperk. Miroslav Koval died on June 15, 2022.
