Convicted by the Communist Tribunal

"This is how it was. It was harvest time, there in our kolkhoz. And one barn caught fire, spontaneous combustion. Angel Barn it was. And the chairman, so as to escape responsibility, first set fire to my barn. The women saw him leave it, and a moment later our barn was burning. And other ones. So that it looked like we had done it. That just wasn't true, we didn't burn anything. Now, when there were all those fires around, and because there was some two-million worth of hops at one of the farmer's, I said to the chairman of the kolkhoz: 'We should move that hops out, or it'll burn.' And he says: 'Don't worry, it won't burn.' And it didn't. Well, and then they put us in jail. That Synek chap was a soldier aswell. Then some Nejedlý chap, he wasn't a soldier, but he was a Volynian Czech. And Hudec and me. Mrs. Synková witnessed against us, that was the wife of Synek. And she was in an asylum for the mentally ill. And then, when she returned she was the Crown witness against us. And they pumped us for three years of custody. And when we were in custody in Litoměřice, I said: 'But we didn't do anything.' 'Well, we know you didn't, but you will go to prison for it.' And that's how it was."

• born 4th October 1920 in Volyn, Ukraine, in the village České Noviny (Czech News)
• drafted to forced labour in Dubna (Ukraine)
• supposed to be taken to Germany in 1941, went into hiding
• joined the Czechoslovak army on the East Front, a tank desant trooper
• trained in Kyberce, Rovna and Rumania
• wounded at Dukla, taken to the Polish Rzeszov, further to the Russian military hospital in Astrachan, stayed 4 months
• served in the army till 1946
• returned to Volyn, then moved to Bohemia, settled down in Staňkovice in the Žatec district
• 1957, a non-co-op farmer, sentenced to 25 years of prison after fabricated accusations of arson, inmate at the camp Vojna and at Bytíz near Příbram
• amnestied in 1964
• requested rehabilitation in 1968, but did not succeed until 1989, now lives in Děčín