Ludmila Váchalová

“I liked how we made coffee. We were permitted to buy coffee or get it sent in a parcel, but we didn’t have any means of making it or boiling water. So, if you imagine central heating, then we thoroughly cleaned one of the ribs, and we poured water over that. We put a tin pot down below, and we poured the water down the radiator [again and again] until it was hot enough to make coffee. Or... The advantage was that the male guards weren’t allowed to enter the women’s wet room, so there, or on a tin pan at the toilet, we’d roll up some pads or cotton wool and burn those and boil the water with that.”

“They grabbed me, sat me into the car, and took me to the State Security station in Tachov. I sat there, my parents were there too. They went through our house and turned everything upside down. They took Mum and Dad as well, they were there the whole night too. And in the morning they gave me some glasses, leather ones, and took me by car so that I wouldn’t know where, but it was to Vykmanov in the Jáchymov District. And they kept me there in custody. [Q: And that house inspection you mentioned they made before they took you, did they explain it in any way, or not?] No. They ordered me to sit in the car. At first I wanted to escape, but I couldn’t, seeing that there were so many people there. And then what? Well, so I sat in the car and waited.”

“It was my last year of school. And what I consider to be the greatest crime, I got an offer from the headmaster. He said: ‘Libuška, I’ve got an offer for you here: you’re a good student, if you give up your family, if you stop all contact with them, with all of them, then you’ll be able to study and you’ll get everything you need.’ I don’t think that offer was just for me because I’m sure there were more such offers, and I really consider that bad, because trying to persuade a fifteen-year-old child to give up her family and leave... I don’t know. Well, and then it’s no wonder that I wasn’t exactly sympathetic of the regime. And because we had very good relations in our family, it was out of the question for us to split up like that. Well, I didn’t realise it at the time, not until later, but what kind of regime is that, if it wants something like that. We deplored the Hitlerjugend, but they were doing the same thing here as well. The advantages they offered tempted quite a few people, I reckon. But I was tempted to go the opposite way.”

“Then they gave me my prison uniform, which consisted of what looked like men’s underpants, a buttonless shirt, some brown trousers, and a brown blouse. And they took me to my cell. [Q: How many of you were there in that cell?] I was alone. For nine months. From December till the end of August, the trial was in September. I had to laugh when I heard Mr Rath [a former government minister and regional governor convicted of embezzlement in 2015 after a lengthy trial and custody - trans.] complain about having a poorly equipped cell, and how he was suffering - that made me laugh. Because the equipment we had... The cell was about the size of this kitchen, this part, seven steps across. There was a squat toilet through the door, it had a rubber tube at the top with a tap for getting water. That was quite something, that we had access to water directly in our cell. There was a straw mattress in the other corner with a pillow, two bedsheets, and a blanket. And that was it.”