PhDr. Juraj Lajda

* 1950

  • "It was a meeting with a lawyer, I had a lawyer from Trnava and we got some kind of summons that there was going to be a court hearing, and he was discussing it with me and I'm reading it and suddenly there's a sentence: 'Marie Živná will not attend the trial because of a paragraph number,' or because of the paragraph that she will not attend. And I say, 'What is that?' And he says, 'Well, that paragraph says that a person who has left the Republic, who is untraceable, who is missing, or who has a death cannot attend the trial.' And that was a shock for me. He did not say anything more, but I realized: 'Oh, well, things are getting tough.'"

  • "But each [printing] sheet had a number, a marking, and it had to be shown what it was used for. And I remember that at that time Betka said to me and to my colleague Anton: 'Well, you have to get the sheets and we have to reproduce it. You have three days. You understand, communism... No business. So what? Well, we went on hunger strike because it's always a tool, you pay something to get something, some knowledge. That was the first thing, then we went, we prayed, I don't know, we meditated, that how to do it. But the important thing is that we had that faith, you know? That's the vision. And now I was supposed to get the sheets. So what? So I found some stationery, office supplies. And I know I went there that morning, I don't know, 7:00 in the morning. They were open, so I went in there and very cautiously I went in, but I was already like, I'm going to run away because it was suspicious to even ask. And I said, 'Please, do you have any printing sheets?' And they said, 'You know what, we do,' and that, 'Who do you need it for?' That was normal. And I was actually at the door about to run away so they wouldn't identify me. And I thought, 'Well, it's for the Metallurgical Project.' And the lady says, 'Well, go to the warehouse, they'll give it to you.' And now there was this old gentleman, and he says, 'Well, what? You want fifty printing sheets here?' I think he gave me fifty, or a hundred, it was in fifties, two boxes. And he suddenly says, 'Give me your ID card,' and now I say, 'Oh, sir, please, I'll dictate it to you.' So I sort of opened my [ID card] and I made it up. Like, my name is Jan Sokolovsky, and I put some numbers on it. And he wrote it down, like an older gentleman. And now the paradox was that I went to the office (as in, the accountant) with the printing sheets and the dispensing slip and I presented it there. And they billed the Metallurgical Project for fifty printing sheets!"

  • "He always had me read a chapter. And he never gave me more. That was like A4, I'll say more about that later, that was Principles of Creation. That's what it was called. And it explained: the basic principle, the origin of evil, about Jesus, about history, and the conclusion. In the present day what can be done and so on. And he would always give me one chapter and then when I understood it, he would give me another chapter. And nothing else. I knew absolutely nothing about a society, an organization. I was only interested in the ideas. And then I remember, this was already in August, 1971, August 27th. We were walking in the city of Bratislava, in Zahradnicka Street, near the Palace of Justice. And at that time there were these ID cards, these little books. Maybe somebody remembers. And suddenly he opened it and there was a photograph. Black and white, tiny, the size of the ID card. He opened it up and showed me a picture of the founder. And he just said this is the new messiah - for our time. That this is the man."

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    Praha, 27.06.2024

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    duration: 02:31:50
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We were persecuted for our opinion

Juraj Lajda in Bratislava prison
Juraj Lajda in Bratislava prison
photo: Archive of the Prison and Judicial Guard Corps of the Slovak Republic

Juraj Lajda, a political prisoner of the communist regime, was born in 1950 in Bratislava. He grew up in a Christian family. While studying English and German at the Faculty of Arts, he met Michal Gľonda, who introduced him to the religious teachings of the Korean Reverend Moon and a small group of his followers. The group had been established in Slovakia a few years earlier through the work of an Austrian missionary and had grown steadily until it eventually spread to twenty-six cities in the Czechoslovakia and held national meetings. Such a large number of people did not escape the attention of State Security, which was particularly attracted to Moon’s teachings because of their anti-Marxist nature. In the autumn of 1973 a major arrest operation was launched, and Juraj Lajda was arrested on 8 October. He was interrogated daily while the police collected evidence and expert reports and carried out searches. The trial of the defendants from among the so-called “Prinicipiel people” took place on 2 July 1974 in Bratislava. The exception was Marie Živná, who died in custody under circumstances that remain unclear to this day. According to the official version, which is not believed by her cellmates, she took her own life. Juraj Lajda was sentenced to three years and two months without parole. After his sentence expired, he decided to finish his last year of university, this time in Brno. He stayed there and taught in the language department. During the Velvet Revolution he was a member of the strike committee in Brno. He is still active in the Unification Church. The latter is legally active in the Czech Republic under the conditions of religious freedom after 1989, but according to the prevailing evaluation it is perceived as a sect.