"I was in the solitary cell. There were the... It was a room three meters by two meters big, there was hardly any air. If someone opened the door, at least some of the air got in. Otherwise it was very cold in there. I remember the first three weeks it was really tough, before I got used to it. I woke up at 6am and my questioning started at 7am. It last until noon, then I was back in my cell for one hour and then again...That’s how it was everyday for five months. Again and again. They tried to persuade me that we are American agents and other nonsense. They tried hard to get our confession. They told us : ´ The men before you got fifteen and eighteen years so if you won’t talk you’ll get the rope. ´ That’s what the questionings were about. They kept pursuing this day after day, for five months. From the morning till the evening. On and on. I have had only one officer there, but sometime two or three other men attended the questioning too. They were wearing these high boots and were yelling at me and threatening me. To be honest, the men who was there with me every day, he was a colonel, if it was only me and him there he was treating me quite fair. But when the other men came in he behaved just like them. He was scared. I was sitting at the corner with my hands tided up to the chain so I couldn’t jump on him or do something to him. After five months it wasn’t so bad anymore. We didn’t have our eyes covered while walking around, we weren’t tided anymore. I remember that my referee told me: ´ If you’ll be smart and you’ll confess, you’ll be home within a year. ´"
"That was one of the reasons why they sent me to Leopoldov prison. Because we were already getting new people on our side in Jáchymov. Now I remembered something. There was some young man there. Apparently he was a blackguard, who got arrested for so ugly thing. And now he changed there. They wanted to talked to me because of him, but I told them they should be glad, that he is a better man now. So that was one of the reasons why they sent me away to Leopoldov prison. So we wouldn’t have such freedom there. Because we were - after the work - we were quite free and allowed to walk allover the camp. I just sat somewhere outside and was talking about the Bible. I memorized the whole Bible. Some civilians brought some literature. I remember that once when we had a line up at night, I cut a hole into my coat sleeve and hid this reading in there so when they were checking us, I held it in my hand like that and they didn’t find it. So we used these books. We also had tiny photo copies of Bible, sometimes we received also a magnifier, so we could read it. Some of our brothers who were in the prison before me have had their contact people already, also some of the civilians, their wives or family members were the Jehova´s Witnesses too, so the stay wasn’t so bad there."
"And then the prohibition came. All of our brothers were arrested and we - the younger - stayed free so we carried on. It was around the end of October or the beginning of November of 1948 I think. They arrested ten brothers who were employed at the Ministry of Culture for being responsible for...so they just arrested them including those who were at the House of Bible in Suchdol (Suchdol is a part of Prague). They took everyone from there including the women. Without any court trial they have been all sent to Kladno town. I remember going there for visit. We used to bring some clean clothes or clean towels for them. Sometimes we even managed to bring some food too. It was rather a big concentration camp, you know. We always must have reported ourselves. Then there was this huge room where we all sat and could talk together. So it wasn’t that strict. But when I was there later it was something else. I was able to talk to my wife only over the glass wall. That was, as I remember, on the Zapotocky coal mine. That’s where I was working after they released me from the prison and where they seized me for the second time. So it was a coincidence. One of our brothers who I knew stayed here so he came to visit us. And he told me: ´ Here is ten sisters and brothers so take care of them. ´ So we did. Well, you know we were only twenty years old, so we didn’t know much. We gathered up every week and were reading books. It was dangerous too, because the agents were watching us all the time. By eventually we got used to knowing that someone is watching us."
"During her visits in jail there used to be this glass wall between us. The glass had holes in it and through these holes we could talk to each other. And when we were done...There was a warden standing right next to us listening to every word we said, so we couldn’t say things like...It was also hard to find something to talk about if we didn’t see each other for ages. You feel the contact between each other and you trying to start where you finished before. When we were done she was allowed to kiss me goodbye. As she was kissing me she put something she kept in her mouth into my mouth. I didn’t understand what she was doing, so I just held it in my mouth. It was some kind of letter or note, I can’t remember anymore what was it. Our girls have been trained out there, they knew what to do when they came to visit us. Our brothers took care of her all the time. She (my wife) was held for questioning for about three weeks in the same prison like I was. Day after day they would let her go home after midnight, she would go to work in the morning and they would take her in again on her way from work. They kept chase her like this until she collapsed. She had to be treated after that and grandma was looking after our kids. But then my wife got sick with her thyroid gland and when I came back from the prison, she already suffered the cancer caused probably by all the stress and troubles she went through. But she remain faithful till the very last minute of her life."
"I signed in on October 1st and on October 2nd I have been transported to the army prison in Hradčany. I went straight to the commander and talked to him privately, so the others wouldn’t accuse me of provocation. They took my clothes and put me into this... I even refused to wear the uniform and other stuff. There were about seventeen officers questioning me, they were threatening me, but I kept replying to the Bible. When they saw that it was useless, they took me to the local jail, the took away my shoe laces and put me on the plank bed. I was happy about it back then. I didn’t mind being there. The very next day they transported me to Hradčany. As soon as they brought me in they beat me up, because they thought :´ This must be some kind of blackguard if he comes in one day and the next day he’s being escorted to jail. ´ But when they realized who I was, they told me that there is someone else like me there already. He is not running away, he is working outside repairing something. Every since that it was much more pleasant for me to stay there. They put me together with other prisoners and I was also feeding one officer’s rabbits outside in the backyard. This way he could keep watching me. And when they brought in people like Mr. Slánský etc. I always had to hide in somewhere so I wouldn’t see that. I can tell you now, I’ve seen some nasty things there and I can tell you it was really terrible. They used to pulled them on the ground, awful. Later when I talked to some of these people who survived the prison, they told me they were forced to drink from the toilet, the women have been abused, they told all this. I also saw the officer to pull the unconscious prisoners on the ground back from the questioning. I remember seeing this as a young boy. Of course all this left a impact on me then. I spent about two months in this prison. After that I was transported to Mimoň town and to the Košťálov town stone mine."
Mr. Josef Skouhutil was born on May 6th, 1928 in Prague. He was a member of the Scouting organization every since he was four years old. He was taking violin lessons, his teacher was the famous player Václav Talich. Later he attended the Conservatory. During the late 40‘s, he became familiar with the Jehova‘s Witnesses sect. On October 1st, 1950 he began his military training, but refused to serve with the weapon he was given so he was arrested for the first time. He spent two months in the ‚house in Hradcany‘ (part of Prague where the barracks were and are up to these days). There he was tried for draft-dodging. He spent some time in the Kurivody prison and also in the stone quarry in Kostalov. Two years after that, he worked as a conductor of the army choir in Karvina town. This way he could serve the army without using any weapon. After his two years long military training was over he started to work in a black coal mine called Zapotocky (named after the former Czechoslovak president Antonin Zapotocky) located in Kladno. He stayed there for one and a half years. In 1955, he was arrested for the second time, but this time he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was transported to Jachymov town prison and later, from March 1956 to Leopoldov prison. He spent two years in the same cell with Gustáv Husák (Czechoslovak president from 1975 - 1989). He was released in 1960. Later, he worked at the CKD engineering company. He was also a head of the Prague’s choir of the Jehovah‘s Witnesses. Later on he moved to Rumburk. Josef Skouhutil died on October 4th, 2017.
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!
