Pravoslav Veselý

"To se stalo, to se stalo v roce 1970. Potkal mě příslušník na ulici a chtěl občanský průkaz. Já jsem říkal, proč ho chcete, a on, nepovídejte a dejte mi občanskej průkaz. Tak říkám proč, a on, jel jste opilej autem. Já jsem říkal, že já jsem opilej autem nejel. A začal bejt takovej to, a já jsem se bránil slovně, a on mě pak praštil. A to neměl dělat. To neměl dělat, protože já jsem v tý době byl docela takovej vzpurnej, tak jsem ho zmlátil. Jenže než jsem ho domlátil, tak přiběhli další, a ty jsem praštil taky." Dokumentarista: "A co se dělo potom?" "Potom si jich pro mě přišlo asi pět, ty už jsem nezvládnul. tak mě odvezli na četnickou stanici a odvezli mě do Hradce do vazby."

"To si pamatuju velmi dobře, to si pamatuju velmi dobře. Probudil jsem se tím, že nám někdo asi ve tři hodiny, nebo ve čtyři hodiny bouchal na okno a říkal přepadli nás Rusáci. To byl šok, no. I když já jsem to tušil, že oni to udělaj. Já jsem o tom byl přesvedčenej. Ještě před tím jsme posílali jako Brandýs, Junák, Dubčekovi, že předpokládáme, že ná Rusáci přepadnou, a že se musíme bránit. Že to nemůžeme udělat tak, jako jsme to udělali ve třicátém osmém. A na to jsme nedostali od Dubčeka odpověď."

"Oni tma na tom Gočárově paláci jsou takový nezakrytý plochy a tam jsem vídával ty Němce, jak tam seděj, popíjej a kouřej, a bylo to takový smutný, no. I když jsme byli tenkrát na Němce naštvaný. protože to, co nám provedli, bylo něco podobného, co nám provedli Rusáci. Nebylo to příjemný prostě, nebylo to příjemný."

“Pravoslav Veselý, Kostelní 29, Brandýs nad Orlicí, dismissal notice. It was on August 27, 1970. In accordance with Article 46, section 1, subsection e) of the Labour Code 153/1969 Coll. we give you this notice of dismissal whereby we annul the contract of employment which had been concluded with you, terminating this work contract as of October 31, 1970 after the expiry of the legal notice period. The reason for your dismissal is your past involvement in activities aimed against the socialist social order, when you were active as an official of the rightist movement KAN, and when you gathered 66 signatures in the Perla factory for the petition which was aimed against the Communist Party and the fundamental principles of socialism. You disseminated pamphlets of illegal nature in your workplace and in your community, and you used your influence to negatively affect the process of consolidation of the political situation. By this conduct, namely disrupting the socialist social order by your activity, you demonstrated that you are not capable of carrying out duties required of our workers, thus losing the trust which is necessary for working in this position. The labour union committee of the factory had given its prior consent to this notice of dismissal. State-owned factory, Perla, August 24, 1970. Official stamp, and the manager’s signature – Veselý, my namesake.”

“It was not easy there. But you cannot compare it with Hradec, which was a lot worse. Hradec was really bad. The wardens there were imbeciles who could only shout, and you couldn’t reason with them at all. They were stupid brutes. Just take their nicknames, like Stalin, or Stalin’s dog… I don’t even know what their real names were, they were all called by these nicknames. While I was in detention, the room was about this size, and there were ten bunk beds, for twelve persons. And I was the thirteenth one. Ten people slept in beds, two slept on the table, and the thirteenth person had to sleep on the floor. The order was gradually alternated as people were leaving. When one person left, I was then allowed to sleep on the table, and only when some more persons left, I could get a bed. But this could take a month or so. There was one incident which I will not forget as long as I’m alive. An elder man died right in our cell on Friday evening. He probably suffered a heart stroke, he was still groaning. We called the warden – we banged on the door, because there was no other way to get his attention – and we told him that a man was dying right there behind the door. The warden only shouted through the door: ´Bullshit, he’s only pretending, not dying! The doctor will only come on Monday.´ The man thus lied there from Friday till Sunday, and on Sunday he was obviously dead. They took him away on Monday. For three days we were there with a dead man, and the wardens absolutely didn’t care. Just as if nothing happened.”

“It became worse in 1968. In this situation, basically all of us believed that the Soviets had nothing to do here, and that they should go away. But at the time when they later came to us and requested that all of us sign a statement of our approval of the entry of the Soviet army, all the others signed it, but I refused. I said that I would not sign my name under something I didn’t agree with. I tried to convince the others to do the same, but they claimed that the family had a priority... I knew that the family was important, too, but I simply thought: ´It cannot be, I cannot sign it. One country attacks another country. We were a free state and now somebody attacks us like this. And I am asked to agree with this. That cannot be.”

“In the 1970s, when the efforts to curb scouting began, the district representative for the Junák had to cooperate with the other youth organizations in our district. We, the scouts, had to choose one person to represent the scouts within this system. But this man probably thought that the position would become his permanent job, and he probably didn’t act so on his own, but he was ordered to – nevertheless, it was him who banned our Boy Scouts summer camp in 1970. A scout forbade other scouts to organize a summer camp. We had already prepared everything for the camp, it was just a few days before we were set to go, we even had all our stuff ready for transport, and I had been assuring everyone that we would indeed go for the camp, no matter what they said. We had to vote on it, and the moderate ones among us voted that we would not go for the camp, because in the last moment they also threatened us that if we went, the militia would come there for us. So this was probably a reasonable decision. As for myself, I would have gone there, even in spite of the militia coming to the camp. But the others didn’t want to.”

“I wrote to the president several times. When they imprisoned writer Procházka, I wrote a protest manifesto to Svoboda... or was Husák the president then? It was at that time, but now I don’t remember which of them was the president. I did write to the president, anyway. The result was that three days after they came to arrest me. I had to go with them and they informed my boss that they would come for me, and thus I spent half a day with the police, and then they sent me back. Every time they came for me, they wanted especially the list of KAN members. Every time I told them: ´I don’t know the names, I had burnt the list.´ - ´We don’t believe you, you surely must remember some ten or twenty names.´ I remembered at least fifty names, but I didn’t give them any of them. Of course they knew that I had to remember some names. But I didn’t betray anybody. I didn’t give them any name, but they asked for them every time. They were even telling me: ´Have you finally come to reason? Don’t you want to lead a normal life after all?´ I would say to them: ´I’m sensible, I have always been so, but I will simply not tell you the names.´”

“There was a Russian who was garrisoned here in Klášterec nad Orlicí. A girl allegedly broke up with him and he got mad as a result, and he just went and shot a whole family. He simply walked to a house at night, banged on the door, and the man, I don’t remember his name now, but I knew it – opened the door and the Russian immediately started shooting at him, The man’s wife ran out in her nightgown, and he shot her as well. The children were upstairs, luckily they didn’t approach the door. They survived, but when the Russian left, they went downstairs and the ten-year-old boy and twelve-year old girl found their dad and mom lying there. They were still alive at that time and the children tried to help them, but they didn’t have a telephone. The parents died there. Their house was located some two kilometres from the nearest village of Klášterec, and ten boy ran there to get help, but before he could get any, the parents bled to death. I attended their funeral, because I knew the man who was shot. He was the chairman of the local village council in Klášterec. I don’t know why the Russian chose him. I cannot remember his name now. Thousands of people gathered at his funeral in Klášterec. Several buses with StB men arrived there, too. The Secret Police men kept reporting: ´There are already two thousand people here.´ A while later: ´Three thousand people have come. What are we to do?´ You could hear them talking like that. They anticipated some unrest: they expected something would happen there, but nothing happened, the funeral ended peacefully, although it was still a terrible tragedy.”

“One day, just as I was leaving the office where I was preparing the wages, a policeman stopped me and said: ´We found out that you had driven a car under while you were drunk.´ I said: ´That’s nonsense, I didn’t drive any car and I was not drunk, either. We did take a shot or two on the construction site, though.´ - ´You’ll go with me to the station...´ or whatever they called it. I told him: ´I’m not going anywhere with you, I have no reason to do so. I haven’t done anything, I didn’t drive any car and I was not drunk, either.´- ´That’s not true, we have evidence for it.´ I repeated: ´I’m not going with you, why should I go with you if I haven’t done anything? And stop pissing me off, you Bolshevik!,´ I told him. He hit me once. He immediately hit me. I was young and quick-tempered, and I started giving him a threshing, but before I could beat him up, some two guys in civilian clothing started up from behind a corner, and they outnumbered me and took me to the police station by force. They put me into a car straight away and took me to the detention facility in Hradec. And only later, in 1991 or 1992, when I was a member of the committee which, on the order of minister Langoš, investigated the activities of the Secret Police, only then I learnt that this incident was a provocation done on the order of the public prosecutor. The prosecutor simply ordered the policemen in Králíky to stage some provocation against me and then put me to prison.”

“I remember this period very vividly, especially the time when the Americans and British bombed Pardubice – Bohdaneč was some only five kilometres away as the crow flies. Whenever an air raid alarm sounded, mom would make us sit in the pram and we would rush to the nearby forests, to the pond called Rozhrna. It was a pond where we were going swimming. From theee we would watch the air raids of the American planes, which would make turns over us and then head onto Pardubice. I remember one massive air raid in July 1944. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and an alarm was sounded, and a great number of bombers appeared and began dropping bombs on Pardubice. The sky turned dark in an instant, as if the day turned into night. I remember this very well.”