“In the State Security custody, we met many people who had also been in Gestapo custody. All of us agreed on the fact that Gestapo had different practices. They were not far from beating and they beat people. State Security did not beat people as often but the psychological effort to ruin people by making them sleep standing at attention, in the light, and by waking them every five minutes, was much more perfect. Those people became nervous wrecks in several months and they confessed everything they (communists) wanted them to. It happened to me personally during Christmas time when I was in custody in Bartolomějská Street where a former monastery which they had hastily turned into a four-storey prison was. Cells for nuns became cells for prisoners. I had to take all my things with me a day before Christmas Eve in 1951 and they took me to Charles Square to different custody of Municipal Court in Prague. The custody of the Municipal Court was amazing. There, we had names again, we did not have names in State Security (custody) we had just numbers there. Local wardens were not State Security officers and it was more humane and you could, for example, look from a window which was impossible in State Security. I said to myself that I would finally be in a more humane environment. A uniformed State Security officer appeared on Christmas Eve and told me to take all my things with me. I went blindfolded down to the car and was taken back to Bartolomějská Street, and on Christmas Eve afternoon they put me in an underground cell for one without windows which was something terrible. I was seventeen years old and I spent 1951 Christmas in that place where I got the most appreciated gift of my life. A peep-hole in the cell door suddenly opened on Christmas Eve and a State Security officer handed me a so-called Pankrác loaf of bread. So I said to myself that even decent people were between them. Just as there were decent people among the Germans back then, there were sometimes decent people also among State Security.”
“Back then I was hit with a rifle butt in Wenceslas Square in front of Melantrich (Publishing House) where mainly university students, but also we as grammar school students were trying to join. Even today, I can still remember that we were standing in front of Melantrich where a press department of Czech National Social Party called Free Word, formerly Czech Word was located. Demonstrations were there. I can still clearly remember that young women were standing in the tilting windows of Melantrich and chanting: 'Long live freedom of speech!' The students standing down were responding with the same chant. National Security Corps officers in uniforms appeared with rifles in a moment and started to hit us with rifle buts. I think that the student’s march towards Prague Castle was taking place the same day but I did not take part in it. However, I was hit for the first time in front of Melantrich.
“Naturally, children are children. I remember that we were on holiday with my family in Rychnov nad Kněžnou during protectorate and the Hitler Youth camp was there. They did a big show every Sunday in the square in Rychnov nad Kněžnou, they had side drums, they marched and they were normal boys. I have to admit that I and my friends envied them when we were looking at them and our parents were angry with us. The Hitler Youth in fact stole many things from scouting, they had very similar uniforms. Except boy scouts did not wear daggers as the Hitler Youth, which are the subjects of collectors' efforts today. It was the point of view of children but otherwise, we were of course against Nazism and we knew what it was about.”
Emil Krause was born on 3 August 1934 in Jilemnice. After Munich Dictate, he departed from Sudetenland for security reasons; he concretely left Olšany where his father worked in local paper mills. They lived in Palmovka in Prague during Protectorate, he remembers the air raids on Prague in February and March 1945. After the communist putsch in February 1948, he and his schoolmates organized a resistance group. They published a magazine called V boj (Fight!) and planned acts of sabotage. They tried to run away across the borders in 1951 and they wanted to join the army there and to free the Republic. They were caught by the border guards and Emil Krause ended up in the State Security custody in Bartolomějská Street when he was seventeen years old. The judge gave him a lenient sentence thanks to his minority and the judge´s warm-hearted behaviour inspired him to become a judge one day. He was again caught while crossing the borders in 1953, this time it happened in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). He was released after almost a year in custody prison and he joined the Auxiliary technical battalions. He arranged for the cancellation of the ban on further studies and after his Secondary-school leaving exam he was admitted to study law as an extramural student. He graduated in 1962. He worked as a civil judge in Nymburk from 1964. He served as a judge during the whole normalization and he allegedly never gave up the hope for improving conditions. He was appointed President of the Central Bohemian Court by the then Minister of Justice Dagmar Burešová in 1990. He participated in the transformation of Czech justice in the 1990s. Emil Krause died on March 1st, 2023.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
