Jiří Vrba

“I would like to know what 1989 and the fall of the communist regime meant for you and your family?” – “I can tell you, in 1990 I retired and I applied for two trade licences for private entrepreneurship. And now I tell you something amazing – I had no superiors, I was not in charge of any employees. It was just myself, with my own head, my telephone, pencil, paper and car. And I had no time to spare! I was so busy! But I loved my work! Thus after a period of forty years, from 1950 to 1990, when I worked for socialism and I had to, well, not fear, but to stand back, now it was the 1990s and I was completely free and independent and I did what I wanted. In my profession, this should have come much much sooner! Because I was already sixty, I could not begin all over, I had these two trade licences and I could make a living. But if something like this had happened when I was forty, I would have had my own company now!” – “And this brings me to my next question: What do you regret most in your life?” – “Those forty years!”

“And I was interrogated every day. One interrogator was all right and he asked me: ´So tell us now something about Pivín....´ and he was slowly poking me, ´And how about the Švéda family?´ I said: ´Well, they live there.´ Just inconspicuously. But the other day there was another interrogator, and: ´We will beat it out of you, don’t you be mistaken, we know it all. Confess.´ And I said: ´I have nothing to confess. I don’t know what you want from me!´ And they asked more and more, and I did not reveal anything, I showed no reaction. I was not cooperative at all. So they thought they would lock me up in a two-bed cell and will put another inmate there with me. They gave me an inmate and I quickly understood he was a shill. He would ask: ´And how about you, what are you here for?´ - ´I don’t know.´ - ´Bullshit. Everybody says they don’t know, but you know it!´ And I said: ´But I really don’t know....´ And after about a fortnight when they found out that I was not helpful at all…One night, it was 10 p.m. they took me out of the cell, to the changing room, undress and dress....A Tatra 603 was waiting in the courtyard, got in, and off we went. And I was thinking: ´Where to? They are taking me somewhere, but where? To the north, that would be the Mírov prison. If we go down south, it’s Leopoldov. But we went westward, that would be the Bory prison, but that’s far away, why would they take me there. And when we passed through Prostějov, one of the men asks me: ´Where do you want to go?´ And I said: ´If I may, I would rather like to go home to my mom.´ So we passed through Prostějov and turned left, I knew the way. We drove the right way! I was so anxious. And we arrived to Pivín and he stopped in front of the city limits sign. ´Get out!´ So I get out, the engine is still running, lights are on, and I begin to walk. My soul was trembling with fear! I don’t know if they now shoot me or ride over me. This is what I then told my sister, when I was afraid, I was afraid only then, I never felt fear any other time, but at that moment I was afraid, I did not know whether I would get home or not.”

“In the neighbouring village, the innkeeper had some alcohol built-in into a niche in the wall. The Russians found out about it, broke in, took out the bottles, got drunk, got in the tanks and rode off to fight the German! The Germans were expecting them, waited for them in ditches. Infantrymen and shooters with panzerfausts and when the Russians rode by, they were shooting at them from the panzerfausts and they destroyed fifty-two tanks! I was running around, I did not realize it was dangerous, I was a boy. And still, my father would not be able to keep me at home, anyway. So I was running in the dale and there I saw a Russian tank burnt down, so I went closer and there I saw the Russian soldiers, shot down like hare. A dead soldier here, another dead soldier there... And one of them, as he was climbing out of the tank cupola, he got shot, and the tank burnt, and half of his body was inside and half of it was contorted outside and his corpse was all charred. This is an image nobody can erase from my memory. I can still see the burnt tank, that Russian soldier and the Russian soldiers shot near the tank”

“František Švéda was their father, the leader of the Sokol in Pivín. And he had three sons – Vašek, Zdeněk and Vraťa. Vraťa was the youngest of them, all of them were Sokol members, and naturally he was my closest friend, because we were of similar age, but I knew all of them. And this Vašek was married in Bohemia, somewhere near Pardubice, so I was no longer in touch with him. But they were members of Sokol, and so was I, so I had this motivation – Sokols are all brothers, and a brother can never betray another brother! And when I then studied the Technical University, in 1953, the semester just began, I lived in a rented room, and the landlady came in, I was having my breakfast, bread rolls and tea set on the table, and she says: ´Mr. Vrba, some people are here to visit you!´ Coming for a visit, at 7 a.m… Two of them entered, coat collars rolled up. ´Your name is Vrba?´ Yes. ´You were born in?´ Yes. ´You come from?´ Yes. ´What will you do?´ I answered: ´Well, I will finish my breakfast and then I have a lecture.´ And he says: ´You will finish your breakfast, but you will not go to school. You will go with us.´” - “What did you think at that moment?” - “I had no idea what it was all about, they did not tell me. And they took me to Olomouc. I can still see it vividly, that changing room. ´Take your clothes off! Everything except underwear, take everything out of the pockets.´ They brought me a prisoner’s uniform, and led me to my cell. And now I was thinking why was that? But since I was not actively involved with the Mašín brothers, or with Vašek Švéda, at first it did not even occur to me. At that time I thought it might perhaps be something in connection with my father.”

“I mentioned Jan Masaryk. I liked Jan Masaryk, because in my eyes, he was a man who liked people, and who was liked by people. Then, when I learnt that on March 10th he was found dead under a window of the Czernin Palace and that the window had been allegedly closed… as a student, you cannot help noticing such thing! For how would you be able to close the window, if you wanted to jump out of it? And this was what I was tried for!” “And this happened in class, with your classmates? In the grammar school?” “Yes, and it was enough to file a complaint against me and commence a court trial. I was underage, it was a court with a minor for having said something like that! And my father received a notification that lawsuit would be held against me. This was in May. In June, Gottwald was elected president, and those judges were not so pro-regime yet, so Gottwald granted me a pardon. Presidential clemency. That article states, I still remember it, Article eighteen, Act n. 50 of 1923 – Act concerning spreading of alarming news. So I got away with that, and naturally I became more careful. Because the worst thing is when you instill fear in people. The people withdraw and no longer voice their opinions. And then everyone, as it really was during the past regime, has one, two,…five different faces.”