"On the morning of September 3, 1973... I went to the dentist. A car pulled up in this archway here, by the school. And in the car was a person I knew. The person said, 'Hi, Josef, we're going to see Sezam, the director of the porcelain factory, we don't know where he lives, could you show us around?' I said, 'Yeah.' One got out, I sat in the back and he sat behind me. I said, 'Oh, that's too bad.' I said, 'Which way are they going?' They were going as the roundabout is now, they turned and went to Vary. I said, 'He doesn't live there.' And he said, 'Don't worry, we'll make it all.' I said, 'I've got the boys, they're coming home from school, I've got to cook for them, I'm going to the dentist now.' 'We'll make it all, don't worry.' The other group went to get my mother, she went to Vřesová, they were sewing for Tosta there. They came for her, took her here to the apartment, a check. They searched, they threw everything down, in their shoes on the bed, looking for everything. They were looking for a connection, to see if I had a connection with the other side and so on. Well, they took me into custody. I was there until April 1974, in April 1974 there was a trial where I got twelve years in prison for Section 105, that's offences against the Republic."
"So I want to go back. The Americans tell me it's a shame. Because I could get the death penalty, and at the very least I could get twelve years. And that was confirmed. But it was confirmed five years later. When I came across the border, where the Americans were handing me over, they had it confirmed that I had been handed over, for the reason that our side could not say that someone on the other side had killed me, that I had been liquidated. So they had it confirmed that I was handed over. The counter-intelligence was waiting for me there, and they took me to Pilsen, where I was in custody. From there, my defense attorney Zdeněk Dítě suggested a review of my psychological condition during that August [1968] period in Bohnice, so I was there for three Sundays. On the basis of the report they issued that I was unable to recognize danger during the period of that 21 August [1968] when I was fully engaged, I was released. So I was already spending Christmas 1968 with my family."
"The letter had gone. I gave it to them, to the Americans. They were putting it in the mail. And this letter that I sent to another address, they carried it and gave it... that my wife got it directly. And I wrote that they were offering United States citizenship, immediate transfer to America. That she was to come to me, but that no one would persuade her to come to me, but that they would get the boys on the other side. So she wrote me that there was no way she could come to me, that her mother was sick. Well, these things that were..."
He was born on 16 January 1939 in Sudkov, Šumperk region. He originally studied to be a forester, but at the age of 18 he decided to pursue a career in the army and joined the military training. He liked nature, which is why he decided to serve on the border and graduated from the Border Guard Apprenticeship in Bruntál. At an unspecified time, he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) and in 1960, at the rank of lieutenant, he was assigned to the border control department in Česká Kubica. This was a railway crossing in the heavily guarded “Iron Curtain”. Josef Morávek commanded a unit of border guards who controlled trains. He was promoted to captain and in 1965 “for good results” he was transferred to the intelligence group at the Rozvadov border crossing. There he provided intelligence for several companies. As a correspondent, he came into possession of secret documents which, together with the release of the late 1960s, led him to a more critical view of the regime. He became a supporter of Dubček’s reformism. The Soviet invasion of 21 August 1968 put him in an awkward situation, when he came into conflict with pro-Soviet officers. After interrogating him, they handed him over to American intelligence officers, with whom he established cooperation. He was provided with a false identity and promised American citizenship. However, by that time he already had a family, and since his wife refused to emigrate to him, he decided - also in view of Dubček’s promise of impunity - to return to his homeland. He was expelled from the Communist Party and the army, and found new employment at the surface mines in Vintířov. In September 1973 he was arrested and sentenced by a military court to 12 years imprisonment for espionage. He eventually served ten and a half years, most of it in Valdice. He was released in 1984 on an amnesty granted by President Gustáv Husák and resumed work in the mines in Vintířov. He died in March 2024.
