Anna Šťastná (sestra Dobromila)

“There was a tragedy in our village. It was the communist-controlled election, and our entire village cast a white ballot (declaring their opposition to the communist one-party rule – transl.’s note). There was not a single communist in the village. And for this the communists murdered the priest. They blamed him for it. But he was so careful. He never said a word about politics in his sermons. Not even once. He avoided getting involved in politics, but still the poor man had to pay for it. He was a native from Ostrava.” Interviewer: “Do you remember his name?” – “Alois Kadleček. It was forbidden to speak about it. They said that he suffered a stroke.” Interviewer: “And how did they kill him?” – “The bells tolled at night from Saturday to Sunday. Bells always tolled when somebody died. All people ran out to see what happened. The woman, who was coming to him to clean the house, came there in the morning with the parish clerk. All the doors in the rectory were open. The priest was lying on the ground in the garden. He had only his underwear, he was not dressed. That was unheard of. He never went to the garden. He lived with his old mother. She was eighty-one or eighty-five years. She suffered a shock. She didn’t know anything and she died in agony eleven days later. She never regained consciousness. The priest was dead. The communists said that he went out and that he suffered a stroke and was lying there in the garden under the tree.”

“The church stands some hundred or hundred and fifty metres from the market square. The square was full of people. They were praying with rosary beads and singing all night till the morning. We were to leave at six in the morning. At five we had the last holy mass in the chapel. The priest then carried the Holiest to the church and the chapel thus remained empty. Everything was empty. There was so much crying, you cannot imagine. We were leaving, and all these people were crying. There were men, tough hardened men, and they had been praying throughout the whole night, singing and praying.”

“We stayed together. We had three rooms. There were Carmelite sisters next to us, ten of them. On the other side there were the Vincent sisters, we called them blue sisters. That was another subgroup of Vincent sisters. It was very hard for them. They trusted them and they really didn’t take anything with them, only food for two days. They had many old sisters there with them, and these poor sisters had to sleep on the ground. Later they brought beds for them from Frýdlant, from a children’s home. They gave them children’s beds. It was unbelievable.”