Stanislav Lekavý

“About Uherské Hradiště: As prisoners in charge of corridors we had to clean the corridors every day. We were delivering food, in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, this was our duty. One day our warden ordered us to clean a corridor down in the basement. And suddenly a door opened and they were carrying an adult man on an old stretcher, naked, unconscious, and he had been beaten from head to toe. Scarlet bruises all over his body. I was standing right by him, because they carried him out in that very moment. I was horror-stricken. And a fellow prisoner told me: ´Take note of the one who opened the door.´ I looked at that man and we walked a few steps away, and the inmate told me: ´This is Grebeníček. The one who greased my heels.´ He was using prisoners’ slang, which was spoken among prisoners when they were meeting each other during interrogations. This horror scene has remained with me throughout my life. And then, later, when Grebeníček appeared in that TV show "Kotel", I began to inquire into the matter. I couldn’t believe that he was the son of that interrogator, and that he was a communist. Such impudence... That’s why I went to Prague and explained to him that whenever one of us prisoners heard the name Grebeníček, we would shiver with horror because he head been torturing people. I don’t know what he has done, but that was enough. It just speaks for itself.”

“On September 25, 1948, I was in the field, ploughing. After I finished school I didn’t do office work, I was at home unemployed. As it happens in the Slovácko region, it was very hot during the day. I had had no water for half a day. I felt completely dry. I led the horses to the stable and I rushed to the kitchen to get a drink of water. My father was standing in the kitchen door and asked me: ´Where are you going?´ I said: ´To drink some water.´ - ´Have you given water to the horses?´- ´Yes, I will.´ - ´Have you given water to the horses? A horse cannot walk to the kitchen to get his water. Get away! First give water to the horses and then...´ I was so angry that I kicked a jar in the kitchen and I shouted that it had to be better to be in jail than to be at home. I was so mad. My father, who cared for the horses, was strict with me. And within 24 hours I already knew what it was like in prison. And that was the beginning of the turn in my life. The end of childhood, the end of carelessness.”

“In Jáchymov, winter time was the worst. The winter was harsh. Not only were the temperatures low, but we also lacked proper clothing. We had these miners´ overalls, and in the mine it was wet, warm, it was as if raining constantly down there. And when we came up to the surface, our clothes soaking wet. If there was no trouble, it took at least half an hour for the others to come up. And within that half an hour, the moisture on our clothes froze. When we walked on the steps, it was as if beetles were walking, and on the surface, we had to stand again, at least for another half an hour until they counted us. That was a regular shift. An irregular shift meant that somebody was still down there. If someone got lost because his carbide lamp went out, (we were not allowed to carry matches) it took an hour or more before he could feel his way to the main shaft. Or they went in search of him.”

“The second day I was sentenced, as they called it, to a stay in a correction cell. It is a dark cell, without any food or drink. Everyday they were beating somebody in there. I could hear the bangs, and this was the worst for me. I was used to taking some beating, but if I heard a grown-up man crying: ´I have fought for your freedom, and now you’re beating me here!´ One could hear what was going on there, because they were mostly soldiers and heroes from the war. In less than a month, my hair turned gray and eventually I even lost my hair; I was shedding a lot of hair. I also developed a speech disorder. Back then, it was so serious that I had to try to remember every single word.”

“A Russian runaway soldier had hidden in our barn, and when my father went there to get fodder for the cattle, he called attention to himself. My father led him to a dugout cottage. He was thus out of the village, but five reliable people were bringing him food to an agreed place. He survived this way for two years, and I believed that he was on his way to the Russian army. Only some twenty years later I learnt that he was shot near Holič in Slovakia in the NKVD or such. It happened in a quarry. And to me, this crime seems to be even worse when compared to what they had done to me. I was able to imagine what this refugee had to go through every day; even more so after my own imprisonment. After he had experienced all this, instead of decorating him, they shot him.”

“I was near death because I had no hope. If there is no doctor, blood-poisoning is terribly painful. The pain was so great that I must have fainted. At times I didn’t feel any pain at all. One felt as if floating on waves. My mom appeared in front of me. And inside my soul, I cried: ´God, if you really exist...´ (I was a believer, but I didn’t dare to... to believe as much as my mom did). This saved my life. This was my situation. I felt desperate. I was apparently biting the wound, sucking it, and then I lost consciousness. In the morning I was woken up by a kick from the warden, and my hand was already feeling better. I survived. I was simply born again that day.”