Vladislav Sloup

"In 1976, I was convicted because the prosecutor appealed after six months and I went to the prison. First, we were here in Budějovice. Probably because they were locals and because the State Security officers were quite within reach, to that prison, it was probably the hardest part of the prison I've ever experienced - in the seventy-six. They took us to work in Volary, by bus from Budějovice. We left at five in the morning, we arrived to Volary at six. There we built a hall for chipboards. There was a whole bus of us. I had my hands from the needle, just as I was used to working with the needle. And now I had to work with a shovel. Physically I felt I could do anything. I was supposed to work with a shovel, and after about 14 days some Captain Pavlíček said: 'Sloup speed up, you should speed up.' And we threw concrete with stones, which we threw with a shovel into a japan, it's called - such wheels that are grabbed by a crane, they are taken up to the roof and there it is used as a backfill. Seven, seven concrete mixer trucks a day. This is the kind of mixer that comes with a truck, it arrives, pours concrete on the ground and we shoveled it into the Japan. And they left again and came again. Every hour, it was one mixer truck. The two of us threw it there with a shovel and I had my hands full of blisters, as I was not used to working with a shovel. And now Captain Pavlíček said that I should speed up, that I should speed up. There was nothing to add, because, what they brought, we threw it there and there was nothing left. Not that I should go dig something, between the arrival of another mixer truck. I said, look, my hands are so sore. "You will work until you have one big blister in your hand, not so many blisters," said Captain Pavlíček. We once arrived at the prison with a bus, and before the gate opened, my wife walked around the prison. My wife and our children walked around the prison. At that time I had a four-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. So, we probably waved at each other. Then, I was banned from receiving letters and packages for six weeks. I got extra tasks, every time we came from work. He told me it was for six weeks because of an illegal contact with civilians. In addition, Captain Pavlíček included me into a group of about eight boys, he called it physical education."

"They started again on me in 1970. A year after the big raid. Saying that I copy magazines. Those who betrayed then said they saw a typewriter at my place. One said he saw a new typewriter, the other said he saw an old typewriter. There were just a few such ridiculous contradictions, but I pointed them out. At that time, in the 1970s, negotiations on the International Covenant on Human Rights had just taken place in Helsinki. Czechoslovakia signed it then - the International Covenant on Human Rights. And I from the very beginning, in the year seventy-two, and whenever there were interrogations and whenever there was persecution, I pointed this out from the very beginning. The Constitution guarantees us freedom of religion, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees freedom of religion, Czechoslovakia signed it, the International Covenant on Human Rights guarantees freedom of religion. And I always reminded about it, in all the files. I never got a lawyer, never. Because when I addressed one in those beginnings, 1972 in that year, he told me, you know, I'm not convinced of your innocence. So, I said it's a shame to pay you. And I never got a lawyer until the very end. But maybe we'll get there. And in that year, seventy-five, since the International Covenant on Human Rights was issued, it was completely fresh. And I pointed it out again. So the court overturned my indictment that it had not been proven that I had committed the defendant's act. So, I got the acquittal in the seventy-fifth. But half a year later, the prosecutor appealed, saying that the prosecutor's complaint has a suspensive effect. They discussed the same thing, exactly the same thing, nothing new was added. And I went to jail. - And what exactly were you accused of at the time? It was an accusation of obstructing the supervision of churches and religious societies. That's what the paragraph was called. They have always applied this to us. I had a principle that I would never testify. From the very beginning, I had a principle: everything must stop at me, even if they knew something, I would not confirm it to them. And I will not talk about others. So from the very beginning in 1970, I used the only legal option - to refuse to testify."

"The interesting thing was that at that time I got a job for a school where they wanted to make twenty dormitory sofas. They wanted to fix the twenty sofas they had stored in a warehouse and turn them into apprentice beds. I don't know if it was an agricultural school, then it was on Rudolfovská Street, there was an agricultural school. And imagine, I disassembled it, I knew it was a war production, and in the sofas there were instead of cotton wool… There were tied feathers, on the feathers there was jute, then paper jute like bagging, the sewn grunts on it - the basics of the upholstery and the top was lined with human hair. Whole bundles of human hair - completely, were cut directly from the head. A shiver still runs down my spine. today, when I know what was being done in the concentration camps with the people where they had their hair cut. At the time, the sofas were filled with human hair of various colors. And so I upholstered them."

"In 1987, I had five house searches. Five, five! No criminal remembers they were going to him like that repeatedly. They could really come to us at any time and they took something. Then they even got into our apartment. I even caught them getting into our apartment. How the house searches took place: for example, eight men arrived at eight o'clock in the evening and the children had to go out of bed, they dismantled their beds, they photographed that they had my book of Bible stories (I'm talking specifically), they lifted the carpet, moved the closet, they leafed through everything possible. They already knew our place there. During the last house search, we had several hiding places around the apartment, which they did not find. And we never said it was here and there, but we said it was in the yard, or I took it away, and that meant it was somewhere else, we just never said it in the apartment because I figured they could listen in on us. They found one of those hiding places during the last house search. In the shoe cabinet. I nailed the shoe cabinet to the floor by the hinge. It opened from the wall, and there was such a crack on the back of the shoe cabinet, and it was possible to put literature there. So, when we came home, we could put it there immediately and we didn't have anything with us anymore and it was there. And during the last house search they came and they opened it right away. It was obvious that they were there before alone, they were no longer looking everywhere, they were already going for a sure place. And they always found the Watchtower, the Bible, there. –How did they behave, how did they talk to you, how did they act? –Powerful. They put us in one corner and they did what they thought was right."