Vincent Samuely

“Everyone was known there. There was always someone who knew somebody else even though he came from another prison (well… they used to transferr prisoners; they came mainly from Jáchymov – from the Jáchymov Mines) and he would tell all he knew about him. So we knew right away what kind of man that was. The one thing was (important, note ed.) whether he was a political inmate or an informer, because one had to really watch out for those. Once there were such rats who wanted to decoy me. They began to malign the regime in front of me, they distributed books (they had different privileges), and they wanted to report me. However, I got ahead of them. After talking with other political prisoners I informed the State Security office that ʻthis and that oneʼ slandered the regime. They called him out, when he came I was sent out of the room, although, I could hear how the State Security member yelled at the prisoner. He said: ʻYou stupid jackass! How come you do it the way they find out so easily?!ʼ”

“The important thing is that while I was in that Podbrezová in 1955, I got happily married after a year and a half of going out together. The first son was born in 1956 and in 1957 (that was when we already left from Podbrezová and we were temporarily living with my mother in law…. because the next year…. I was supposed to get the flat…) my second son was born in September and I was arrested on the 1st of November! It was the fourth time! This time it was somewhat worse … They took me out of the blue, I didn’t know what was going on … They came unexpectedly, they searched the office of building company in Banská Bystrica then they took me to my flat, well, the mother in law’s flat, and searched it too. I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to my two sons or my wife. They put me in the car and we left. I spent the night in Regional Court’s prison in Bratislava where I had to hand over my belt and shoelaces (so I couldn’t hang myself, God forbid). The next day we continued in our journey. Three secret police members from Prague came for me – it was the car with Czech number plate that drove me from Banská Bystrica. We arrived to Břeclav, I guess the secret policemen got hungry and wanted to go for a meal. They couldn’t leave me alone in the car so they had to take me with them. Well, and any stranger could have thought about four people sitting at the table, what best mates we were.”

“Not so long before my time there, I came to Valdice in 1957 but before the Hungarian events that means in 1953, there were inmates who remembered it all. They told us about a case when they wanted to get rid of someone, there was a high wall, ploughed ground and fence with signs ʻno tresspassingʼ. Up on the wall there were machine gun nests. What they did then was that warden took a hat of inmate (the one they wanted to kill) and threw it into the forbidden zone. Then he said to the inmate: ʻGo and get it!ʼ … Well, the prisoner was reluctant to go there, he was afraid of the sign ʻwarning – shooting zoneʼ (or something similar). So he yelled at him ʻGo and get it!ʼ And, so he did… they emptied the whole batch. ʻDied on the runʼ the family was told.”

“The tragedy of my arrest… it was just that they arrested me after eight or nine years after committing the so-called crime. () I could vaguely, really only vaguely remember what happened in 1948/1949. Well… I didn´t expect it at all. This is how it all happened: One guy I knew, a friend, a classmate from grammar school with whom I rented a flat in Bratislava in 1949…said another schoolmate from grammar school would come to Bratislava and that he was coming from Vienna. And me…I went to that meeting more out of curiosity than anything else. Well… (I know only the things that others said and what the secret police told me when they interrogated us) apparently there we promised to cooperate with the agent that came from Vienna. He was a CIC agent, an American agent. He told us he would come back for resolution signed by many college students…where we would describe the conditions in the college etc. The truth is I did that, I signed that resolution. Then another time and within another case…It was after my graduation and I lived in a flat in Bratislava when another colleague, with whom I studied at the college, came to me with a stranger and introduced him to me. It was actually a Vatican priest who was sent to the Republic with a purpose by Vatican (and whoever else). At my place he got a chance to shave, get changed etc. Then I walked with him to town centre and there we parted. This was my second offense…. (1.) I attended the meeting with the classmate and signed the resolution and (2.) I allowed some spy, as they called him, to get changed, shave and have a wash. I was assigned a defense lawyer who replied to my question – what would I get- three to five years. Well, they gave me seven years. Two colleagues who were tried with me were given six each. I got seven just because I had two offenses. It was very hard for me to be locked in the prison especially because I haven´t expected that at all, and because I was moved from a nice love nest to such a place.”

(Štefan Haško: Do you have a message for other people, for the next generations? My message is to live honest life and never forget that other people want to live too. When I want to live well, other people want the same. What I mean is that I don’t have the right, a moral right, to live in the way of drudging someone else. That is my message.” (Štefan Haško: “Thank you; thank you very much.”)