Oldřich Čapka

* 1922  †︎ 2017

  • “Everything was done through Bukal, he was the person who directed the messenger to us. Although Mrs Jüngling was there, her husband would send the things to Bukal. We received the messages in an interesting way. They came from Ludwigsburg in the Prague-Paris train. We knew that there would be a message waiting for us in the third wagon under the mirror in the toilet. We hid our messages for Jüngling in the same place, and he picked them up in Ludwigsburg. It worked like this until we found out that Bukal had been arrested, which was five months before me. I had the opportunity to hear that his record was very extensive and thorough, and that Bukal had been given a thorough seeing-to as well. His wife used to stop by to see us when she went to visit him. She got him things like spare glasses, which he had broken. wife used to stopped by us when she went to visit him. She got him things like spares for his glasses, which he had broken. One time they sent Bukal’s laundry to be washed, and it was bloody.”

  • “It was sometime in 1948. Bukal lived in Riegrova Street in Olomouc. We met up. I told him I had thought everything through and that I would join them in their efforts. So he acquainted me with František Kopecký, the Kadlčíks - simply, with people I would be dealing with. Later on we divided up our tasks. We started making contact with a messenger from the West. Mrs Jüngling had two small children, and it was promised that we would help her escape.”

  • “My name is Oldřich Čapka. I was born on 12 May 1922. My parents were quite a bit older. When I was born, my mum was 47 years old. I was the youngest of five children, and the age difference between me and my eldest sister - she was born in 1895 and I in 1922 - was rather significant.”

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    Brno, 28.11.2012

    (audio)
    duration: 02:14:51
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Every day I pray and give thanks for life just the way it was

Young O. Čapka
Young O. Čapka
photo: Archiv pamětníka

RNDr. Oldřich Čapka was born on 12 May 1922 in Brno. During the occupation he was drafted into forced labour. In 1942 he escaped from the labour camp and was subsequently caught and sent back to his slavish work. After the war, he studied the natural sciences at Masaryk University in Brno. Until his arrest, he worked as an assistant to the Faculty of Medicine in Olomouc...In February of 1952, Capka was part of the political trial with O. Bukal and co., where he was sentenced to eleven years in a high security prison. With the help of couriers and a secret cache in the Prague-Paris express, they were able get in touch with the Czechoslovak Hussite pastor and prominent pre-February-1948 functionary of the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party, A. Jüngling. Jungling had fled to Germany in mid-1948, where he served in the Ludwigsburg refugee camp as a minister of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and an important functionary of the camp committee...Since 1990, he has been continuously active in the Brno branch of the Confederacy of Political Prisoners, as well as a prominent member of the Stoma Club. RNDr. Oldřich Čapka is the winner of the Příběhy bezpráví (Stories of Injustice) Award for 2012.