“When we went for a visit, they told me to stop by, to sleep over. So that I wouldn’t have to travel the whole night. So I stayed at their place that one night, I had bought everything I could – food that wouldn’t go bad quickly. I said: “Here you go, if you can bring him some, then do so, if not, eat it. And if you please could give him buttered bread or something.” He [blacksmith Hruška] said: “We can only meet rarely.” Pepa then told me: “I couldn’t go there all the time. Only when they needed something from the blacksmith.” So he had to make something up every time to be able to go see him.”
“When I saw my dad in the evening, he says: “Wait, now you’re about to see something.” So we kept the lights off. They [across the street] had about three quarters of their windows covered by some sort of blanket. My father saw over that, he was tall, he saw them torture someone. It was some sort of interrogation and the person was a prisoner – dressed in a prison uniform. And he [father] said: “Well, Pepa has a really nice place here.””
“[Josef] said: “I just got back from work.”, he worked the afternoon shift, he allegedly washed himself in snow and he just laid down to rest when this cop came by and told him to get up and that the lights were out in the corridor. I don’t know if it was the one who had given him the promotion, no idea who he was. And Pepa says: “I just got back from my shift, now I won’t get any sleep again and I’m working the morning shift tomorrow.” And the cop says: “Well, maybe you will get some sleep.” So [Josef] went with him and said: “On one condition, though.” He had conditions! “One guard will walk in front of me and you will be behind me, otherwise I’m not going, there’s too much snow.” He had to go with a long ladder and on the way there, he said – I’m told he’d done it on purpose – he said: “I slipped and as I was holding on to the ladder, I shoved it into the wires, those were charged, and all the lights in the mine lit up, the alarm went off.” And he [the guard] says: “What the hell have you done!” “There’s so much snow, it’s slippery, I have bad shoes, I need new ones.” And the next day he had new shoes.”
Milada Vykoukalová, née Vladyková, was born on 24th July 1927. Her parents sold electromechanical supplies in the Prague neighborhood of Vršovice. During the war the family moved to Říčany u Prahy where Milada spent most of both the war and the liberation. During the war she was deployed to serve in a travel agency in Strančice. When the communists took the power her father was arrested for being an entrepreneur and imprisoned for a year with no trial. In 1950, her husband Josef Vykoukal was also arrested, along with his father František. They both belonged to an anti-communist group and were found guilty of high treason. Josef spent ten years in uranium mines in Jáchymov. His father František was imprisoned in Valdice. Milada was allowed to see her husband only during five short visits over the course of his entire sentence.
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