Václav Pták

“There was a great pilgrimage on the feast of St Cyril and Metoděj in 1985. Were you there?" "Of course we were. We were there and many of us from Plzeň were there. And it was such a first public performance, a demonstration of people's will against Communism. The main speaker was Klusák, the minister of culture. By the way, he was the son-in-law of Svoboda the president. And he had a great speech there. But he was silenced, given to the birds many times. It was at the beginning. And then you could see that the Communist elite spread in the crowd: 'Come on, guys, don't shout!' they were directing it. 'And it is bullshit what you're saying. He is right. Listen to him!' And they went like that. I remember that I also told one of them then: 'Shut up or we will trample you here.' And he said something. And I said: 'Hey, pass him on to me.' And like a snake in high grass he zigzagged and disappeared. He was one of them. And there I saw what the youth the (catholic) religious orders had for the first time. When I talk about Franciscans again, for example the Plzeň guys appeared publicly in habits there for the first time – as students. That guy was in my group. He came from Doubravka and he was in my group, but we didn't know about one another (any details). Suddenly I came there and saw him in his habit. I said: 'Vašek, alright?' And he said. 'Well, you know it now.' There were so many young people there! Both nuns and theology students. But some of them gave it up later, not everybody finished it. But the Communists had to be thunderstruck to see what was actually growing under their hands, under that strict regime. They were sure they had informers everywhere and there was something growing up through their fingers over there. It must have been a shock for them. The archbishop Tomášek also performed publicly and fearless there. It was simply a Republic within a Republic at that moment.”

“What they were hurt most by during interrogations was – as we found out – that we were organized from the religion point of view. And there were also people who lectured us and exactly knew what they wanted. For example, the JOC movement (Jocism) was founded in France at that time. That was very painful for them that we were formed from this point of view. And they themselves were very scared of it, we felt fear in all their acting, what would happen if it turned the other way. It was the undertow of it all. They were like: we are strong, there is no other force that could beat us, those were such... Pity you're so young and haven't experienced those... You often see the events shot at that time on TV – simply those presentations of power, so to say, both weapons and people. We are invincible. But you always felt fear in them. I don't want to boast but I don't think my psychology knowledge is so poor that I couldn't understand them. I only somehow felt that undertow of fear in it. And then, when any kind of danger or suspicion appeared that there was arising such movement, then they were scared. Things like that someone went there and then, how to put it, a would-be strong expression of something, that he would do some petty sabotage. It was such a one-off action, they weren't scared of it at all because they could liquidate it overnight. But this, when you were learning something, they were scared of this because it was not possible to liquidate it overnight.”

“At the beginning when the political prisoners were alone and were not mixed up with criminals, you could settle many things. But then there were kind of three groups: thieves, it meant stealing socialistic properties. Then there were so called 'screws'. Do you know what it means?" "Some sexual offences?" "Those were for example teachers who had some flings with children. So those guys were flexible and informers among political prisoners recruited from those. For example there came a chap to us, he was a secretary of the country council of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, a head of people's militia. And he was imprisoned. We didn't get out of him how many years he got nor what for. Probably for some theft or something. We avoided him this far because he informed on us. Or there came a group from Škoda Works, there was some stealing there. They were carting something and were caught red-handed. The boys were given some half a year or three quarters of a year, something about one year. Unexpectedly there was a colleague of mine who worked with me in the construction section when I worked there. So we met there. Well, he had something carted as well and then he got the worst of it. And there was also a guy very friendly at the beginning, he was also from Škoda Works but I didn't know him then. And he befriended us, he was fine, OK. And then all of a sudden (prisoner) Vili told me: 'Be careful about him, he's watching you.' So we were careful about him and he was really watching me. I was his charge. We had to keep our distance from him. Or I remember that a nice chap stuck to me once. He was smiling and started talking to me and asking me questions. And I felt something fishy right since the very beginning. You see, such people who are too nice, who smile, especially women, they are those to worry about most. He was talking to me (a lot of interesting things). However, it was very interesting that he started asking me questions that I was used to being asked at interrogations very often, it was about the second or the third day when we went for a walk. And I got the feeling this instant: Be careful! Secondly, people say: If you want to get to know something you must listen but not talk. There was Láďa Horáček there, an artillery colonel. And when we came (from the walk), he told me: 'Václav, take care of yourself.' And I had no idea why. The guys were passing by there. He told me the second day: 'Václav, do not stumble over, take care of yourself.' I thought it was strange. So I went and said to him: 'Láďa, could you possibly be more specific?' And he said: 'This is Hromádka,' it was the guy's name. The colonel was in prison for life so he was careful. 'This is Hromádka, ask about him...' There was a boy (Jirka), well a boy – he was in his thirties – and he was one of the nuclear construction scientists. He was sentenced to 25 years at that time and he was also imprisoned for a Catholic event. And that Hromádka was responsible for his ten more years. So I asked the boys and they explained everything to me. So then I treated Hromádka the way he deserved." "And he was some kind of an agent?" "He was an ordinary prisoner, who worked for them. Exactly as the guy about whom (prisoner) Vili told me. They were old hands, they had very sensitive noses because they could smell it immediately.”

“I experienced the first contact with the members of Internal Security Forces during the Sokol festival right in 1948. We somehow chanted there at that time, we disobeyed. So they drove us into that, it was not underground then yet, but it was in Václavské square, where the underpass from Vodičkova Ave is. We were held in there for some time. Then we were individually taken and interrogated. And we had an overall feeling that nothing would come out of it. We said to ourselves: It ended up quite all right. They took our personal details and asked why we were doing it and such. Those were stereotypical answers. Everybody from our gang said almost the same. And we said: That's OK. Well, but it was not OK. They counted with the then made recordings that they would be as coherent as it all developed later. So they remembered that. And they reminded us of that later on. And we were students and we yielded to the desire to do something. So we also joined in. There were two basic groups of us. Of course it all leaked out." "Can I ask you a question? Was it in Prague?" "It was in Budějovice – there was one group there and Smíchov group was the second one. They were in contact with one another, they were simply coordinated. Well, and (later) it all leaked out from a completely different source than we suspected. They accepted a girl, an only child. I even didn't know her. But when they characterized her later she was an only child who in fear lost all her courage and said even things that she didn't have to. So it was how they got to know about us. But still it was not the end of it. We didn't know that the girl was talking. She didn't boast with that so we didn't know that. But it was all revealed then when we had some links to guiding people – and not only across the border. But there was always a way for those who needed to cross the border. Such people couldn't go on foot or go by train or by bus. We always found a way from one station to another.”

“And may I ask you how you lived out the 1989 when Communism fell?" "In hospital. We were all (patients) packed in front of the television. I had such a wide sticking plaster on my stomach, I held it and we ran down there (where the television was). So the first days – I was operated on the day before – the situation was very tense. But we didn't expect that to break so fast. At least in our conditions. So I was in hospital then. And when I came (home) and recovered from it, so the new regime started being formed. I really minded that people who should have gone fly kites, they were pushing their ways upwards. And they succeeded, unfortunately. Well, and I still wanted to go for it, so I started (to work) in the new village administration.”