František Ďulík

“In 1953 Stalin and Gottwald died and I had spent this time in a solitary confinement. That is a sort of a concrete bunker. We would get food there once in three days. I do not know why they put us there. I had a suspicion since I have had a friend who planned on escaping, somebody ratted on him and they included me in the case. We had to wear armbands showing that we were the ‘escapees’. So they locked us up in the solitary confinement during certain holidays or funerals. There was little food there and it was very cold, lots of snow. Nobody can imagine what it was like. I don’t want to exaggerate since I don’t even remember it too well anymore; it’s been such a long time.”

“But I didn’t work at the ore, this had saved me. Had I worked directly at the ore, I would have perhaps not been here today. But everyone was scared of these camps. Because, I don’t even want to say it… We would work for eight hours at the shaft, return to the camp, have lunch and then do more chores in the camp or around it. For instance go into the shooting range and cut grass. We had to do all that; it was horrible. Everyone would need to do at least additional four hours at this job. And those who couldn’t have – for instance those who worked in Příbram, left at seven in the morning and only arrived at six in the evening – those wouldn’t go to this job. But us who worked at the mine, we had to. In Bytíz, there were two mining towers, it was a vast mine and there were plenty of civilians employed there as well. It was simply a huge mine. We were hungry. Back then – I also said this on camera – I said that I would have eaten a loaf of bread at once. So hungry I used to be.”