Karel Matula

"I arrived there, I know exactly, on April 17, 1947. I was there [in Mníšek pod Brdy] for almost exactly three years. Until the thirteenth to the fourteenth of April 1950. At midnight we were ambushed by a police commando. They took all of us to jail and we were left without a trace. And I used to be on duty. I used to go bread shopping every day. So the next day I went to the rectory. And I told the parish priest what had happened. The parish priest's name was Šíma. He said, "Everybody out now." And he arranged for all of us to go to the seminary in Prague within two days. And there we were accommodated and we had the opportunity to finish each of the started year there. We were private students. So we always took exams at the end of the year for that particular year's material. So on the eighteenth of June we all went to the exam, we were all successful. That was such a pearl for us. It was such a sugar rush that everybody did well. I was finishing my sixth year at the time. And so when we finished, the vice-principal invited us individually. He split us up, I got two thousand, and then we parted ways. Then I finished high school in Brno at Antonínská."

"It happened that the parish priest, Father Hanzl, invited me once. He said: 'Would you like to study? You could study in Mníšek pod Brdy, there are Salesians there." So he reckoned that I would become a priest. Of course it was for me. And he rake. So I went there. I arrived there again in March, the seventeenth of March. Once again, the seventeenth of March. When I got there, I was starting on the seventeenth of March. And then almost on the same day, it was 1947. And almost on the same day in 1950 we slept. Suddenly I was awakened by a sharp light. I sat up. And there were two guys standing in the doorway. "Lie down, don't get up." One was SNB and the other was wearing an arm band. So I lay down. It was a shared bedroom. And next to the entrance to our bedroom was the entrance to Mr. Ratz's bedroom. Father Chudarek was there. They were trying to get in, "In the name of the law, open up." I heard, because I was second from the door. "Wait a minute, I'll get dressed." And they said, "Open up." When he got dressed, he opened. "In the name of the law." He was such a joker: "Couldn't you come in the morning? Wouldn't that be better for you too?" I don't know what they said to him. And as they were leading him, I can still hear him saying, "I feel like I'm in the Garden of Gethsemane." And the SS man says, "Where is it? Who do you know there?" And the one at the door says, "We'll have plenty of time to tell you." And that was the last time I saw Father Chudárek. And then after another fifteen long years."