Luboš Hruška

“Just next to the guard’s post is a cell, which is separate. It was where they put those they want to get rid of. I managed to peek there through a peephole when I knew for sure that the guard was not in the hallway. I peeked there and I saw the man there– it was Ghandi. Thin, skin and bone, exhausted to death, beaten, broken. Then we learned that it was a policeman, who somehow started resisting them. An honest policeman. When he witnessed injustice, he protested and complained. They beat him every day, poured water at him using ‘C’ – the heavy hose that firefighters use. They broke his glass window, therefore in the summer and in the winter, the little window didn't have glass. That man was pitiful and he died eventually, of course. They destroyed him completely.”

"They put us in a detention center. There was a staircase, which we called ‘Daliborka.' It was winding just like this. In the last prison cell stood an inmate. He looked just like I had always imagined Jesus Christ- a beautiful, intelligent, mistreated man, with gray hair, exhausted. It was obvious how much he had suffered there. He had been there for some two months. I don’t know what crime he had committed, but later I learned that his name was Honza Smid, an army colonel and a personal physician of Hana Benesova.”

"My buddy, Vlasta Majer, a fantastic guy and a lieutenant like myself, met there. One day we had an idea that we could attempt an escape. We learned, I don’t remember how anymore, where the sewer that passed through the prison yard was going. We figured out that the sewer empties into a creek- that there are bars locked with a padlock, therefore we’d need a file and a saw. Well, who will go first? We used to go for movies – once in about 14 days, but you did not have to go, only if you wanted. So I said, 'I’ll go first.' So I crawled into the sewer. But I must tell you, you are shitting in your pants, when you know that few meters away a soldier stands and that you are an escapee de facto- you are on the run and you know what they do to them, with chains, so I was not cheerful at all. I did not make a lot of progress. My main concern was that when I hit the chisel with a hammer, the sound would bounce in the sewer far away. I managed to disrupt it, pry loose several bricks because it was a brick sewer and there was already dirt and it would go better there. But to all that, whenever someone flushed a toilet, all the shit got on my back. Vlastik Majer went there next time and before it was my turn again, someone from the Ministry of Interior arrived, Captain Karafiat- this swine I won’t forget for the rest of my life. After his arrival we had to sleep without straw mattress and covers, just on the iron bunk beds. The next day, we had to pack up our stuff and we were transported to Leopoldov.”

“In that spacious hallway, when we were undressing, guards took the better shirts and pullovers from those who had them without hesitation. 'You won’t need it anymore.' The chief welcomed us, 'It is a liquidation camp for you here. You’ll all kick the bucket here!' (And what was his name, do you remember?) Sure, Lieutenant or Senior Lieutenant Balint. It was the beginning of a true liquidation camp. We were thinking that he was just kidding. We had seen a bunch of them already and, look, it was not the case. He gave us such a load the very first day that the elderly gentlemen– leap-frogging, crawling, duck marching and so elderly generals, colonels – every other with a heart problem, soon fainted, of course. They poured water on him. He woke up. 'Three hundred squats!' They knew no other number than three hundred. So you can imagine one did three or four squats and fainted again. This was the beginning of our liquidation camp.”