Miroslav Wildung

* 1919

  • “They took me from the secret police headquarters to the prison in Olomouc. It was like a salvation for me. The reason was that the cells at the secret-police station were really cold. They had only built it in the autumn and I was taken there in January. As far as the interrogations are concerned, well … let’s say that they caressed us but at the same time it wasn’t that horrible. There was not much beating taking place. Those who had been arrested weren’t taken to the secret-police quarters at all. We were only there for a day. Those that I didn’t know had just come to the Olomouc prison. The lights-out was only at ten o’clock and they turned the lights on at six already. Cover up and put your hands under the blanket. It was a disaster. Because then he would kick the door and wake up the entire floor. When you slipped under the blanket all the way. That was forbidden. When they took you to the interrogation, you only had a number, no name. They would put glasses on your head and lead you to that room. But there were almost no beatings I have to say. Because they didn’t even have to, they got them to tell them what they wanted just by…”

  • “I was working under them. I had a vegetables and fruits shop. I went to Moravia. I lived in Zlín and two guys from there wanted to get away. I didn’t go there but my car was going to Mikulov. In those days, there was no barbed wire at the border. If you drove out there you could go through the corn field to Austria. But the Russian army was stationed in Austria and they caught them there. Not just them, they got many more there. They beat it out of them – they forced them to make a false confession. They said I knew about it although I wasn’t even there. That’s how I was sentenced to nine months. I spent my term in Mikulov in a stone pit and then returned home. After that I was sentenced to forced labor in the TNP for a second time (forced-labor camp).”

  • “I saw a deadly accident pretty early on in the mine. It happened to a guy who helped people flee across the border. He was a tall sports man. Originally, he was a carpenter by profession. He was constructing chimneys, struts and these kinds of things. He was sort of a boy scout. ‘Boys, I don’t want to go today’. He was buried by a boulder. As long as he was buried underneath it, he spoke to us. As soon as we finally managed to lift it up with cranes, he was gone.”

  • “When we lined-up they counted us. I wasn’t there at the time but I know from hearsay that nobody wanted to stand in the first row. It was because one of the warders would beat those in the first row deliberately with his heavy bundle of keys. They called him ‘Paleček’ (Albín Dvořák), he was the officer in charge in Jáchymov. Nobody would stand in the first row. During my term there, there was an acquaintance of mine, a guy from Znojmo. He was a teamster. I knew him because I had worked with him before. One day, he came to the line-up in his slippers. The warder sent him to the correction and after two hours, he was dead. Požár from Znojmo.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Měrovice nad Hanou, 20.09.2011

    (audio)
    duration: 02:36:58
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

They made such a huge group of us, we could have knocked down half of the country

Young Miroslav Wildung
Young Miroslav Wildung
photo: archiv pamětníka

Miroslav Wildung was born in 1919 in Měrovice nad Hanou. Although he claims that he has never been involved in an anti-Communist rebellion, he was twice imprisoned. The first time was in 1949 in what used to be Gottwaldov, when he was sentenced to 4 months for illegally trying to leave the territory of Czechoslovakia. He spent his term in the Mušlov prison nearby Mikulov. Being an enemy of the democratic people’s regime, he was sent to forced-labor camps in Pardubice and in Frýdek-Místek after he was released. Shortly after he came back home from the camps, he was put on a trumped-up show trial. The charges included high treason and the leadership of an anti state group. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, the forfeiture of all his property and the loss of his civil rights. He was released from prison on an amnesty in 1960, after he had spent 7 years, 8 months and 16 days in the uranium mines of Jáchymov (the labor camps Nikolaj and Rovnost). At the time of the trial, his wife was in a state of advanced pregnancy and Miroslav saw his son for the first time when he was 1,5 years old. Today, he still lives together with his wife Ludmila Wildungová in his birth place.