"They shaved my hair, gave me a raincoat, put me on a bus and took me to basic military training. I found myself in New Jersey with the soldiers. But I had no idea what I'd do there because I didn't understand English. There was a large room where thirty of us slept on plank-beds. I tried to imitate what the others did. When they went somewhere, I went along. When they stood at attention, so did I. I understood nothing and merely mimicked what the others were doing. All was going well. Then, we were throwing handgrenades. At first, these were just dummies. Then the real ones. I thought I would die from that. I didn't know what to do as it blew up, couldn't understand those people and what they were explaining. Luckily, it turned out fine. I didn't even have a dictionary and couldn't ask anyone for advice. And so I listened and repeated the words that soldiers were saying. How do soldiers speak? Rudely. So in about fourteen days, I met an officer. I saluted and greeted him. I already knew: 'Good afternoon, you son of a bitch!' You know what it means... I didn't, and everyone was saying it. I took two steps when he called me back. He was telling me something but could see I didn't understand a word. He waved his hand and said: 'Chaplain' - so that I'd go see the military chaplain for being rude to him."
"When I came there - first time in my life - I asked them how to vote. They told me I should put the ballots to the box. I asked what should I do if I didn't want to vote for those people. They told me that this was indeed mandatory. I said I didn't want to. In the end I did go behind the screen. Immediately, they reported that I hadn't voted for the selected candidates. The Technical University in Brno gave me a choice: either to go work at a mine or in an agricultural collective. I chose to work at a mine because there, one could at least earn some money. I then spent some time in Ostrava at the Hlubina mine, which no longer exists. There was some training taking place the first three days and then, as I was going down the pit for the first time, I could see them bringing up three injured guys. I was pretty shaken by the sight. We also worked Sundays so that the red star would shine and we'd get an extra 100 CZK. By then, I was already meditating whether this system was at all livable."
"While working as an advisor to the minister, I also spent a year teaching at a seminary in Prague. When I went to the faculty meeting for the first time, I was appalled. For forty or fifty years, they had no idea, how things were done. They used textbooks from the 1920s and 30s. It's as if a medical doctor began telling you fifity years outdated things. The world moved on and got to another level in the meantime. But they still taught that. For me, it was a shock. I was teaching people who were to become priests in a few months. I told them: 'OK. You have been studying for several years. I will play the devil's advocate to see if you are able to defend your faith.' They were not. They understood nothing from the Bible. Maybe they do now, but in 1991, they didn't. Their level was catastrophic. If that was the level of a medical doctor, I would've never visited him."
"We crawled on until we got to the prohibited territory. It was a raked field so that it would be easily visible whenever someone walked through. We ran on and got to the wires. There were three lines. First one was barbed wire. We had combination pliers with us. Me and Petr were doing the cutting. The second line were high-voltage power wires. We cut through those as well. There was direct current in them and the grass around was burnt. We also cut through the third line. Then we could hear some movement. Someone was coming. They probably already knew we cut the wires. Luckily, we were able to crawl through and ran away. Suddenly, Petr disappeared. Before finding out what happened, I fell down after him. There was a mud-filled ditch there. This was still in Czechoslovakia. We got out of there with Syrovátka running behind us. Most probably, soldiers with dogs were already there. But then we saw a cross in the field. And we thought this had to be Austria already. We thanked God for letting us succeed. And we walked to the village of Drasenhofen."
"I grew up in Mutěnice in Moravia and after WW II, we moved to Bohemia. We lived in Pečky, near Poděbrady. My dad expanded his shop. When the communists took over, they expropriated it and imprisoned him. They said we were 'wealthy village family'. We moved back to Mutěnice. My dad was sentenced to several years of work at uranium mines in Jáchymov and we had a very hard time. We were not even entitled to food stamps. As so-called enemies of socialism, we got none at all. There were four of us children, I was the eldest. My mum brought us up and it was very hard for her, without any income. Daddy was in prison. People were worried to get in trouble if they kept in touch with us. Sometimes, they came over at night. I remember this from my childhood. My mum could tailor well and people visited her at night so that she would make them a dress in exchange for food. This is the way we made ends meet."
"I knew I couldn't live here. There was pressure all around. On my parents, sisters, I couldn't get anywhere, there was no future. I couldn't stand this system. I couldn't live in it. It was like trying to live in a polluted environment. Simply impossible. The way people acted here, that stupid bullshit or the mottos: 'Forever with the Soviet Union", 1st of May parades, and always that idiotic propaganda which was complete nonsense. Also, the pressure against religion since we were attending the church. I just knew I couldn't live here."
Josef Šupa was born on 19 November 1937 in the southern Moravian village of Mutěnice as the eldest of four children. After the war, the family moved to Pečky where they had a farm and a shop. Following the communist rise to power in 1948, their company was expropriated and they returned back to Mutěnice. In 1949, Josef‘s father was arrested and sentenced to four years, serving the time in the Jáchymov uranium mines. His mother was left with four children, no income and not even eligible to food stamps. People turned their backs on the family. Following release, his father was sent to do roadworks far from home in northern Bohemia so that he couldn‘t live with his family. Josef Šupa was not allowed to obtain a high school graduation but thanks to a trick, was able to get recommendation to study at a grammar school. He graduated in 1956, was admitted to the Technical University in Brno but never commenced his studies. He refused to vote for the communists in general election which prevented him from studying further. For a short time, he worked at the mines in Ostrava in order to earn money for a smuggler, which turned out to be a dangerous informer. In June 1957, he along with his friends Petr Esterka and Vladimír Syrovátka hastily escaped across the Austrian border on their own, cutting through the barbed wires. He made it to the US where he did military service with the air force. He then went to Nepomuceno in Rome where he completed a seminary, just as Petr Esterka did before him. He studied theology in the US. He served in a diocese, spent six years teaching at the Ohio-based Pontifical College Josephinum, and then served as military chaplain with the American air force. In 1979, he visited Czechoslovakia and was banished from the country. At the end of the 1980s, he served as military chaplain in Germany. In early 1990s, he spent one year as an advisor to the minister of defense Antonín Baudyš and establishment the department of humanitarian service in the Czech army. He established chaplain services in eleven post-communist countries.
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!
