Václav Kříž

* 1925

  • "I once had this case. We had fatigue duty and we had to sweep the floors. And these officers and aviators that we had there, they walked outside under the chestnut trees and we had to sweep up their cells and such before they got back. We had to do that, even the officer cadet had to. No one else had the right to do it according to prison law. Well and I was sweeping up this small little cell, and suddenly I hear a bang and find I'm shut in there. So I'm thinking oh damn. Very well. Suddenly the door opens and they lead in general Píka. They gave him outdoor time separately from the rest. He had had his appendix removed. There was a plan at the time that some three chaps were supposed to spring him while he was at hospital, in Střešovice I think it was, but the plan was betrayed. And I can't remember which embassy it was from, I can't remember which ambassador grounded it. So they shut us up together, guard Moulis did. We started chatting and he asked what I was there for. I told him and he said: 'Considering your position, don't worry, it's worse with me.' I told him we knew him, that we watched when they let him out for his walk. He said: 'You'll live to see the day, boy. But I won't. They'll take me down.' He knew it. And that's what happened too. He wanted to give me some cigarettes, that I could stick them in my shoes, but I refused. 'It's not possible,' I said. 'It would just be trouble.' That's what some fellow prisoners said, that they sometimes had to take off their shoes and so on."

  • "My name is Václav Kříž and I was born on the 16th of November 1925 in Semice at Písek. My father's name was František Kříž and my mother was Terezie Křížová, maiden name Žofková. They were both born in 1903. My father was a farmer."

  • "There were even Communist cells there that the Russians created. We already knew about all that. Specifically, in Písek in the pipe factory there was this Russian foreman. When the Communists had a meeting, he organised it. It was all being done form Russia already. We listened on them once, when they had their meeting, that was early on in 1947. They were talking about collectivization, about kolkhozes and so on. One of the local Communists was saying: 'Do you think that they'll give it up willingly? Like you're saying here, like it is in your Russia?' The second one, who we recognised, said: 'So we'll hang a few and be done with it!' That's how it went there. So we knew what the situation was. The Communists were very active, but as for Semice itself, they didn't have much a voice there."

  • "We agreed to tell one of the guards that we would take off our shirt and dry it, that is if he would let us make a fire out of the broken boards. He thought for a while, then said: 'But not long.' Well so we splintered the boards with our pick-axes, we managed to get them burning and we were first. We reckoned that if others were to come there, he would send us away. So. And it was just getting dark. We took off our jackets, what we had, and we dried them through and through. We watched the one guard from the corner of our eye. They had this wooden guard post, which was about fifty to sixty metres away. 'When I say go, then we run.' We got dressed and I said: 'One, two and go.' And we started running as fast as our legs could carry us. But we were only halfway, that is about seventy metres towards the three-metre larch grove. The guards started bellowing and we heard a round of fire from an SMG (sub-machine gun), then another. That made us really run. One didn't know what to think, if he had been hit, or not. We heard the bullets whiz over us. We rushed into that larch grove and just crashed through it. Our faces were scratched by broken branches and we were bleeding. We only found that out after we got a long way away from there. We fled down hill. The larch grove was thick, but luckily it wasn't very wide to hold us up. It was maybe thirty metres wide, then there were small trees, sapling grown to a metre and a half or so. We fled down a great big slope that we couldn't see from were we worked. It was really fast going down the slope to the valley below, some 150 metres. The was a cart track there, we rushed right into it, right into a flock of geese. There were a few cottages tucked away nearby. And they started shouting and a woman's voice said: 'What's that...' And she didn't finish the words, but started crying for help: 'Help, criminals!' So that's the service they did us. We were the criminals. Well after all, they often told us that we were criminals. She cried for help, she noticed it was us, we had our prison garb. We got to the other side, across the path. We crawled out on all fours. We got into a corn field, I don't if it was rye or what it was. It was flat on the ground with bindweed growing over it. We couldn't run there. We were lying down all the time, but we would get up and hurry onwards again and again. And we found out that we had a river in front of us."

  • "It happened in May 1948. I can't be specific about everything, that's not possible. To the people who know their way around the conspiracies of certain organisations and so on, I don't need to say any more for them to know what I'm talking about. During the actual escape I was caught five kilometres from the borders, near Jalový Dvůr. I was arrested on a report. At the time I was arrested by a member of the Civilian National Guard in the forest actually on the move. Either one of the villagers noticed me, or I have another suspect that can't really prove even today. I was informed about the approximate route I could take to the borders by one of the soldiers. Maybe the report came from him."

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    Mačkov u Blatné, 18.08.2008

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    duration: 04:37:29
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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“I am not ashamed of my ideals.”

Vaclav Kriz - Prisoner
Vaclav Kriz - Prisoner
photo: Národní archiv

Václav Kříž was born on the 16th of November, 1925 in Semice-at-Písek, the first-born son of František Kříž and Terezie Křížová, née Žofková. His father was a farmer, his mother helped with the estate and was at home. Kříž had a younger brother, Slávek, who died at sixteen months of age, and a younger sister Jiřina. Kříž completed elementary school in Semice and middle school in Písek. He did not start grammar school because of the Germans’ arrival. In 1942 his father contracted a severe case of pneumonia. It was a more than critical situation. For that reason, Václav was not forced into labour in Germany, and together with his mother he took care of the family. Kříž was present at the liberations by Vlasov’s army, the Americans and the Russians. He also noticed the unusually high activity of the KSČ (Czech Communist Party) in the Písek district, and other suspicious factors that made him wary. Kříž started compulsory military service in October 1947, and he was there, in Týn-upon-Vltava, when then Communists rose to power in the February Coup. The political situation got worse. The garrison commander was retired, along with other officers. Together with several of his fellow soldiers, Kříž started listening to foreign radio and reading the daily news, forming his own opinion of the situation. The death of Foreign Affairs minister Jan Masaryk was the last straw. He decided to act. On the 24th of May 1948, Kříž deserted and headed towards the western border. However, he was caught at the borders and passed over to the OBZ (Defence Intelligence). The first three interrogations by the OBZ took place in Tachov. He was then transferred through Pilsen to the military prison in Hradčany, Prague. The interrogators attempted to prove to him, that he had been in foreign countries, where he supposedly betrayed military secrets. Kříž however repeatedly denied that. The main trial took place at the State Court in Prague on the 17th of December 1948. Kříž’s father was also there, he couldn’t come to terms with what was happening. Václav Kříž was convicted of military treason and sentenced to 15 years of prison, the loss of citizen rights for 10 years and to a quarter-year of fasting and rough lodging. Kříž served his sentence in eleven different jails and Communist labour camps. He spent the longest time in the uranium mining camp of Vojna, near Příbram. The whole time he kept alive the thought of escape. He went through with that plan together with Antonín Polanecký directly through machine-gun fire on the 16th of July 1951, at camp Svatopluk. Thanks to the fact that the two prisoners covered a large stretch of ground in relatively short time, they succeeded in escaping immediate recapture. The pair continued towards the western border. After 15 days, Kříž was reported and arrested close to the borders. He had lost his companion several days beforehand. He was transported back to Svatopluk, placed in solitary confinement and interrogated - when he refused to admit that he and Polanecký wanted to emigrate to the West, they attempted to slap him into compliance, and he was returned to confinement without food. The situation culminated at the camp command center, Zelenka, where Kříž was brutally physically tortured. The court gave him five more years of prison. The much wished-for probation in May 1960 was saddened by the death of his father soon after in July. Kříž lived with his mother in Semice. He worked at a repair shop in Surface Constructions (Pozemní stavby). In 1963, he met Marie Koptová at a dance, and married her the same year in St. Vitus’ Cathedral in Prague. For unknown reasons, the union was childless. The newly-weds moved to Mačkov at Blatná. His wife worked at the local JZD (United Agricultural Co-op), Kříž as a repairman in various car repair shops. Some people still liked to remind him that he was a former political prisoner. He had problems with the StB (State Security), but he did not give up. He refused to join the ROH (Revolutionary Union Movement), he did not vote, he probably kept some sort of contact with the American embassy. He welcomed the year of 1989 with gratitude. His relations with the western allies culminated in the founding of the SPUSA (Association of Friends of the USA) in Blatná. He became a member of the KPV (Confederation of Political Prisoners), which was a natural conclusion to his participation in the founding conventions of the K 231 in 1968. Currently he takes part in the Písek branch of the KPV. He still lives with his wife in Mačkov. They will be celebrating fifty years of their marriage soon. When he thinks back on the years of imprisonment, he is thankful for the opportunity to meet varying characters in extreme situations. He is not ashamed of his actions, as they did not hurt anyone. He merely stood up for his ideals.