“It was a farce, there was basically no defence. You cannot say that there was really an attorney. He was just another StB man who had to behave a little bit and who somehow steered you the way they wanted. He watched for moments when I revealed something by mistake. Then they immediately jumped into it and it went on as they wanted. It had nothing to do with a court proceeding. There was beating, too. They were bastards. They were-second-class people, I don’t know how to put in other words. When they beat somebody they felt superior to him. Nobody told them anything there. If they killed somebody, nothing happened. I would say that one somehow learns to live with it or something like that. It is impossible to forgive... one cannot forgive this.”
“They knocked on the door right during the class and they told the teacher that they needed to speak to me and they told him to call my name. The teacher thus called me out and the StB men were standing behind the door. Each of them on one side of the door. As soon as the door opened and I made a step forward, the door swung like this and that was it, I got right into it (they took me with them – ed.’s note) to Cejl (prison in Brno – ed.’s note). That was a paradise for people like them... well, for StB policemen, to put it shortly. They held their noses high and they would beat anyone whom they saw if they wished. They were forcing people to sign confessions which were not even true. They would beat it out of you. That was absolutely normal.”
“The main investigation took place in our home. They ordered my parents to go to the bedroom and they locked the door. They dragged me to another room so that my parents would not be able to hear me. That was the other room that we had. They interrogated me there. They did not know how to deal with me. I denied everything I could. They were threatening me rather than interrogating me, because my parents were at home in the other room. They were raising their fists and threatening to hit me.”
Břetislav Loubal was born in Tišnov on June 26, 1931. Already when he was a young boy, he was interested in Sokol, Scouting and theatre. His great passion was flying. He was active in an aero club and after 1945 he established the resistance group „Jan“ together with some of its members. They were printing and disseminating pamphlets with anti-communist texts. Břetislav was arrested by the State Security Police in 1950 shortly before his graduation from grammar school. They led him away straight from the classroom and he was put to the prison in Cejl in Brno. Břetislav was sentenced to one year of imprisonment for anti-state activity and high treason. When he was about to be released, the authorities extended his sentence by one more year without any court trial. He served most of his sentence working in the mine in Oslavany. After his release he spent nearly three more years doing the military service in the Auxiliary Technical Battalions. Again, he was working in the mines, this time in the Ostrava region. His stance toward the communist regime negatively impacted the options for study for his son. In 2015, the defence minister Martin Stropnický awarded Břetislav Loubal for his involvement in the resistance movement and his resistance against the communist regime. Břetislav Loubal died on 27th February 2022.
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!
