“The first time we ran was in ’48, some time before Easter. We went to Bratislava, and then through Petržalka into Vienna. Well we reached Vienna. By foot. We only travelled during the night. During the day we slept by the Danube, and then the next day, at nightfall, we set off again. And every time a car drove by, we jumped into the ditch. Simply so that no one would see us. Except when we came to Vienna, we happened right on a police station. There was a policeman standing outside, he saw us coming, and when we saw him we stopped. He went inside and in the meantime we jumped into the ditch. Except that he’d gone for reinforcements, they came out and headed straight for the ditch. So they caught us.”
“The one bloke knocked on the door one evening. I open it: ‘What are you doing here, what’s going on?’ - ‘Well, we shot a gamekeeper and now the police are after us and we don’t have anywhere to go, we need to hide.’ So I took them as well. We were in the middle of threshing, it was summer. So I made them a kind of nook, a free space for them up in the loft where the straw, the bundles were stacked. They would climb in through a tunnel in the straw that would be blocked by a bundle. So they were there. I told them: ‘Boys, just please, don’t smoke.’ I gave them a bucket for them to wee into and said: ‘You can only come down during the night. When it’s dark.’ They were there about a week.”
“He was a Czech, local-born, and he owned a rubber factory. So we came to him. ‘Of course you can, feel free to take your coat off and start working.’ So I found a spot there. What a man. [I was] one of his employees, I was there like a son at his father’s, in his family. Straight off the first day: ‘You don’t have any money, I’ll give you as much as you need.’ Simply so willing. I worked for him right up to the when I emigrated to Canada. And I can tell you, a wonderful person. I didn’t have any way how to return him his kindness, so what I did was: every day we would work until, say, five o’clock. And I stayed there till ten. I didn’t write down any overtime. I wanted to thank him in this way.”
Miroslav Procházka was born on 28 November 1928 in Veverská Bítýška. He grew up on the local farm. After completing town (primary) school he began working in a shop, but he did not last long there and left to study to be shop assistant in Brno. The communist coup in February 1948 found him in his second year. Because he was convinced of the unacceptability of communism, he attempted to escape to Austria already in March. However, he and his two friends were arrested near Vienna and expatriated back to Czechoslovakia, where he was saved from certain punishment by an amnesty of president Klement Gottwald. But this experience did not stop Miroslav from continuing to dream of freedom. He took part in resistance activities, helping his friend Jaroslav Salajka, an agent of the British intelligence services, to hide a foreign pilot. Their cooperation continued until several resistance fighters were arrested. Being in danger of discovery by the police, Miroslav decided to leave Czechoslovakia. After six months of training as an agent ranger, he returned to his homeland. Together with his colleague Jaroslav Sláma they collected information about both the resistance and Communist activities. When they succeeded in crossing over into the West once more seven month later, Miroslav decided that he would not take the risk again and instead emigrated to Brazil. Life was difficult in the country with a different culture and having no financial means. In 1960 he succeeded in obtaining a visa to Canada. The witness lived in Canada until 1999, but after the death of his wife he decided to return home. He now lives with his second wife in Želešice near Brno.
