They turned us into an anti-state group

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Jiří Šoustar was born in 1925 in Horní Bobrová in the centre of the Czech-Moravian Highland. He has been a member of Sokol and Boy Scouts since his childhood, and he also served as an altar-boy in the church of St. Petr and Paul which was located only a few steps from his home. After the death of his father in 1950 he decided to study in order to become a priest. He was however arrested shortly after and in a politically motivated trial accused of involvement in an anti-state group and sentenced to two and a half years of imprisonment. He spent a year and a half in prison in Uherské Hradiště and in the labour camp in the uranium mines Mariánská before he was released in amnesty. He and his wife now still live in his native house.