Zdeněk Křivka

„A labor camp Barbora is deeply in my mind because of a screw named Kulhanek. I didn’t mince my words, which someone carried to him. One afternoon two guards picked me up from work. I knew something is wrong. They took me to a headquarters barrack, stripped me naked and left me stand for an hour in a corridor, where the temperature reached 3–4 degrees above zero. Finally Kulhanek appeared out of his office, told me to dress up and go in. At first he just shouted at me, but then he ordered me to change clothes. I was still in working dress. Now I knew I was heading to a correction unit. The unit comprised a concrete building with three cubicles, where wooden plank beds were hanged from the walls. Only tiny space had been left to pass by the plank beds. No mattresses at all of course. I happened to find myself in the correction unite many times before, so I knew I had to await freezing temperatures. I decided to take a towel, which was forbidden of course. At the moment Kulhanek saw the towel around my neck; he started to shout and dragged me by the towel around the room. Then he stroke my head against the wall repeatedly and finally put me in the coercion unit. I was locked there around a week. Outside were freezing temperatures between 25 and 30 degrees below zero. Naturally there was no heating in the unit. Through a small window snow fell in. These were really life threatening conditions. I had to do anything to move permanently. Motion is the basic law of creation.”

„The worst freezing we had experienced was 34 degrees below zero. Two hundred men were standing on a platform and the screw Kulhanek forbade us to draw our caps over our ears. The platform was digged in the mountainside and the headquarters barrack stood just over it. Kulhanek watched us from inside through the window clad in fur coat and cap and mittens. He literally laughed at us as two hundred men had been freezing there in poor cloths. Biting wind came and within ten minutes all got frostbitten the ears in these conditions. My ears were weeping several years until my body finally coped with the frostbite.”

“I was taken to Pricni Street. Immediately after I entered the room, a interrogator locked the door. Then I realized a file labeled Zdenek Krivka was prepared on a table. Without a word or a question the interrogator started to beat me with his fist. Then he ordered me to kneel on a chair, my feet were sticking out through the chair backrest. I had to stretch out my hands and he placed a pencil on my fingers. You can just try how long it takes until your hands get tired and the pencil slides. Every time the pencil fell on the floor, the interrogator smashed me in the face with such strength I toppled on the ground with the chair. But still, you can survive such beating.”

„Whole of my life I wanted to be a teacher, but I was a workman instead. I’m not bothered about it. If man wants to become a real personality, he can find his way even in the wasteland. As workmen I was able to educate myself in such a way I have no reason to be ashamed. In a German magazine I have read a statement of a sociologist Elisabeth Lukas: ‚Not the circumstances, but the outcome which man reaches within these circumstances counts.’ This is decisive. That is the reason why I do not accept any excuses related to circumstances. Everywhere I try to reach the maximum. What really matters is the man’s will. Without the will you can never create a personality. This could be only the result of your own will.”