“As I was telling you, I had to sign up to collaboration with the secret police. I was just about fifteen and a half years old. And just a month or two later I pledged loyalty to the National Security Corps: ‘I promise to faithfully defend the people’s democratic republic – that is, the working class, its rights, privileges, achievements. Shall I betray and break my promise I shall be met with a just punishment, anger, revenge and the contempt of the whole nation.’ Date, place, agreed. The National Security gave me a weapon so I worked for them. I was a young guy who liked adventure.”
"So, we got to Ostrava where the interrogations had begun. They threatened to destroy my family but I never admitted to collaborating with the Americans which is what they had suspected me of. So I received twenty-three years of prison and a motion for death sentence. My attorney went to the court and asked me whether I knew that they proposed capital punishment. I did because the investigating officer told me. My trial took place on Monday 24 August 1953 and on Sunday he walked me to the courtyard. He told me that there was a long way from a motion for capital punishment to its execution. I replied: ‘Damn, it’s a short way in fact.’ So I began defending myself claiming the bad conditions in which I grew up. I hadn’t even mentioned the National Security Corps. In the end, I received only 23 years of prison. By that time the state courts were already abolished and so I was tried by a regional court. And the chairman of the senate then asked me who told me how to defend myself.”
“I would like to tell the young people to deliberate over everything they do in their lives because even the early age affects their further lives. They mustn’t be frustrated about wanting to become a doctor, for instance, and instead becoming a locksmith or a founder. Every profession is nice when one has an affection to it. It is also necessary to realize that nothing is for free – nobody gives anyone anything for free today. It is wrong that everything is valued in money these days. We can see it even among spouses that money causes bad things. Breakup of marriages then again makes the children suffer. I know it very well myself. In 1947 my mum pointed her finger on some gentleman behind the window, telling me that he is my father and that she won’t prevent me from coming to him.”
„I had two attempts for escape from a work camp in Jáchymov in Mariánské. I got on the twentieth bus, there were so many people in Svatopluk. They took us to Mariánka. We had twenty cigarettes, a packet of tobacco a week, an hour of walking, otherwise we were still in the barracks. We arrived and refused to work. There was a small Russian there and said: Guys, you need to work, there will be vodka, even girls if you work well. Guys were just laughing. He left and the chief came back, accordingly a barber from Brno and said: ‚What are you laughing at?‘ We were standing in line. Nobody stepped out and silly me did and said: ‚You mean me?‘ And he replied: ‚This kind of crooks we can always deal with.‘ And I said I´m no crook, but either sentenced to prison or punished and kept walking. Yet there were swinging door. I heard quick steps behind me, but before I could turn around, I got such a punch I flew through the door and smashed at the wall.“
„Now the worst time in my life began, a boy from Jablunka stopped me. I don’t remember his name. He suggested we´d rob a woman from cooperative carrying pay checks. She had to walk past Bečva. He gave me a nine-millimetre pistol. And I´d forgotten it under the pillow. And forgot to make my bed. My mum went in and saw it. She took me to Zukal, he was the regional secretary of the communist party. He told her: ‚Just go, we´ll deal with it.‘ She asked, if I´d be punished for it. He said no, lady, you´ll learn soon. He kicked her out in a nice manner. And let the secret police in. They took me to Rose villa, it was formerly owned by the director who was executed. They told me he was innocent and it was just a judicial error based on fake accusation. And they said: ‚Damn, you´re smart, will you this and that?‘ I said: ‚Why not?‘“
Stanislav Mazan was born on 1 October, 1934. He grew up just with his mother. He only knows his father was a manual worker, who worker at the rails in Vsetínsko region. At the age of fifteen he decided to immigrate to Germany. He was tempted by adventure and was naïve and didn‘t know that he needed a passport to cross the borders. He was arrested on the border near Cheb and was given a suspended sentence. He became the focus of attention of the state security in Vsetínsko. He was offered to sign cooperation, although he was not of a legal age yet. In 1952 he tried to cross the border again. He got to Austria to former zone controlled by American soldiers and was interrogated by American secret police. Trying to cross borders to Germany he got lost and ended up in Russian zone. They captured him and sent back to Czechoslovakia. In 1953 the Regional Court in Ostrava sentenced him to twenty-three years of prison for high treason. He was imprisoned in Leopoldov. After attacking a guard he was transported to psychiatric hospital in Bohnice and then to work in the Jáchymov uranium mines. He tried to escape without success in a part of Mariánská. In 1960 he was released during amnesty, but as he didn‘t work later and committed several thefts in Slovakia together with his mates, he was in prison again in two years. He left the prison only in 1967. He worked as a stoker on the railways and then in mine in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm. In 1989 he was finally rehabilitated. Stanislav Mazan was born on 1 October, 1934. He grew up just with his mother. He only knows his father was a manual worker, who worker at the rails in Vsetínsko region. At the age of fifteen he decided to imigrate to Germany. He was tempted by adventure and was naïve and didn‘t know that he needed a passport to cross the borders. He was arrested on the border near Cheb and was given a suspended sentence. He became the focus of attention of the state security in Vsetínsko. He was offered to sign cooperation, although he was not of a legal age yet. In 1952 he tried to cross the border again. He got to Austria to former zone controlled by American soldiers and was interrogated by American secret police. Trying to cross borders to Germany he got lost and ended up in Russian zone. They captured him and sent back to Czechoslovakia. In 1953 the Regional Court in Ostrava sentenced him to twenty-three years of prison for high treason. He was imprisoned in Leopoldov. After attacking a guard he was transported to psychiatric hospital in Bohnice and then to work in uran mines in Jáchymov. He tried to escape without success in a part of Mariánská. In 1960 he was released during amnesty, but as he didn‘t work later and committed several thefts in Slovakia together with his mates, he was in prison again in two years. He left the prison only in 1968. He worked as a stoker on the railways and then in mine in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm. In 1989 he was finally rehabilitated. Died in 2019.
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!
