MUDr. Zdeněk Susa

* 1942

  • "We opened the door to these people who were cooperating at the time, saying we would take them in for an interview if they wanted to. Of course, the way that was done was that somebody checked in with me and somebody checked in with a synod elder and we worked it out. A number of the people that were on that list, and probably the more prominent ones, did not request an interview. We did, however, hold that those who are on the lists are not to be excommunicated or cursed, but they are not to hold any higher office in the church. And we held to that."

  • "He wanted to know who I was. So I said I was Dr Susa and I was coming to visit Mrs Nemcova. That confused him a little bit, so the gentlemen asked if she was on sick leave, I denied it and they found out about me. And Dana, because they had just had a search and they were arresting her, they were arresting members of VONS, the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted, at that time, so Dana looked at me sadly from a distance. Well, they let me go when I came in as a doctor and left me in my own juice for about a week and then they summoned me to the tile building in Bartolomejska street for questioning."

  • "I only found out about it when the hunt for signatories began. The text seemed to me to be nothing against nothing, it only asked that the laws of this country and international treaties be respected. I would have signed it without any problem if I hadn't already known at that point how the signatories were being chased. So my wife and I sat on it whether or not we should sign, but we had these three young children and everything depended on my income because my wife was at home with the kids. And so we said, if we don't sign, but we have to do our best to make sure that the people who did sign weren't isolated."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 02.12.2020

    (audio)
    duration: 01:47:47
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Praha, 27.01.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:55:45
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 3

    Praha, 08.02.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:58:32
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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I have nothing to worry about, I’m in good hands

Zdenek Susa as a paramedic teaching first aid, 1972
Zdenek Susa as a paramedic teaching first aid, 1972
photo: archive of a witness

Zdeněk Susa was born on 25 October 1942 in Prague. He graduated from medical school and then worked in Františkovy Lázně. At the end of the 1960s, he moved with his family to Prague, where he worked as a doctor in Strahov, on Charles Square and then at the hospital in Veleslavín. From the 1970s onwards, he helped spread information and samizdat literature among dissidents. He was interrogated by State Security on several occasions. After the Velvet Revolution, he co-founded the Christian Democratic Party and served in the leadership of the Czech Brethren Evangelical Church, of which he is a lifelong member. He has written several books, including on his travels in Europe, and runs his own publishing house. In 2020, he was living near Prague.