Vladimír Ráček

“Uncle contracted pneumonia while he was imprisoned in Valdice. He was not admitted to the prison hospital. He shared a room with certain Ferda, who was nicknamed ‘Pearl of the Prague Sewers.’ This man was an employee of a sewage company… provided a hiding place for weapons for some people in 1949. He did not care about politics. He was imprisoned and sentenced to fifteen years. He was taking care of my uncle for two weeks. He was making tea for him and applying compresses. For two weeks. My uncle was thankful to him.”

“We were bringing macadam there, the same material used in road construction, and the place was wet and they found out that nobody knew how much macadam had been issued... I was a leader of students of theology. Our performance rate was 140 percent. We were supposed to work over hundred percent, and our leaders, the officers, were paid according to how much we exceeded hundred percent. There were regulations for that. We worked for the Metrostav company and they paid us, but we had to use this money to pay for our accommodation, food, and everything, and what was left was being sent to our savings account and we were receiving only some pocket money.”