Ferdinand Takáč

“I was released from prison under a big amnesty for all the political prisoners in Czechoslovakia, only some of them were excluded. From our group only father Mikuš had to stay in prison, because the so-called bosses of groups shouldn’t be released. It was a great day for me. We were called out, to the yard, which was crowded with prisoners. However, the situation back then was the same in Jáchymov camps. We were announced that, ‘You all standing here go home. You have been granted an amnesty.’ But we didn’t clap; we only stayed quiet, because we deserved it. None of us committed anything wrong. It was just for the political prisoners. It was on May 9, 1960. I was released on the first day and my brother and one of his friends were waiting for me. However, I didn’t come, because they let them go in certain stages not to get drunk on the way and so on. The State Security members were everywhere and though we were wearing our civilian clothes, they knew we were different from the others.”

“After a year, my trial was finally prepared. At first I remember that we were led to the basement, the window was somewhere over the ceiling. We had to put our civilian clothes on for the first time and then I noticed trodden parts on the floor. Oh God, how many people were here? It was totally trodden. I even say I was walking there like St. Paul, though I didn’t want to compare myself to him, you know, but one Croatian author, whose publication I translated into Slovak (his biography), wrote about the number of kilometres he had walked on his travels. However, I also walked hundreds of kilometres from the window to the door and the like. When we came there, we changed our clothes. We saw each other for the first time in the bus. And we were taken to Ruzyně prison.”

“Later, I asked cardinal’s brother, who had a small vineyard under the Zobor hill. ‘Why did you do that?’ ‘I wanted to be alone.’ He also was in prison. Be alone. One man said to another man from Turiec, ‘You know, solitude is not difficult, people are.’ Once I was in the number four, I just say the number. There were only murderers and the like. Really hard criminal cases, I spent a month in hell. While in our cells, it was like in an estaminet. And there were some laymen, so when I went to priests’ room, oh God, one man was reading silently, another one was praying rosary and the last one was reading newspapers. These two were talking to each other and when they placed those heavy hitters to them, young prisoners started to bully them.”

“As for my process, I can only say I thank god for being involved. I was given eight years. All the others were given more, even up to twelve years. And I depicted everything, of course, from my own point of view, but it really was a documentary. Once, I said, ‘Why shall I, our Lord, suffer here?’ You know, all my closest relatives died, my brothers, father. So I had to write it. Nobody else could, because what people don’t experience, what they only see, will always be strange for them. Thus I decided to describe all details.”

“We stood there and father Mikuš walked there this way and the guards tolerated it. He walked around there and when he passed me, he said something, you know, when they dragged us up the stairs, he objected, ‘It actually is the life imprisonment.’ He was 71 at that time and was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. I told him then, later I apologised, but Jožo Porubčan wrote in his biography that he used to teach us, ‘Forcia agere, forcia patri jezuiticum est,’ which means suffering bravely and acting bravely is Jesuit. He taught us that and I reminded him of it.”

“I spent one year in Trenčín, in that grimy rubber factory, where I met Jožo Porubčan. He called the Provincial, father Marko, who also worked in Czech, and he forced me really intensely to become ordained. However, I went to visit father Mikuš, because I wanted to gain his approval and I really did. He called him and he came by the first express train. He was there for four minutes and said to Jožo, ‘All right,’ and then he took the first express train back. Later I was ordained a priest and we two celebrated the first mass. Then I said, ‘Jožo, look, they also had bridesmaids and wreaths and I had nothing, just because I was only a pen-pusher.’ However, at least I didn’t have to do any dirty job; I didn’t have to have a bath every day just like when I had worked in the rubber factory. I only said, ‘What about going to Skalka?’ So we went to Skalka and I celebrated my first mass there.”

“He just came and found out some new information about me, so they didn’t want to have me there any more. They sent me to a standard prison along with other young prisoners. However, I was glad. I knew about Jáchymov from some other men there... I know that for example priests had to clean the radiating ore with their bare hands and separate it. Nobody else but priests. In the second camp there were about nine priests. After everything I had read about it, I was glad to be moved from there. Otherwise, I don’t know. In prison, we worked on the shifts, then we had lunch, later we had two hours for a walk, and then we could read some newspapers… I experienced various episodes there.”