Ing. Zdeněk Horák

“Before father was ordered to go for that special army training, he had had a surgery in Brno due to stomach ulcers, and they had removed a quarter of his stomach. He had to be on a strict diet, but regardless of that, the comrades invited him for an extra training in Komárno, where obviously they didn’t care about any diet for him. Rum, cigarettes, etc., affected his health. From Komárno they sent them to Poprad, then they had to move to Prešov, then to Pardubice. One guy from Prostějov died in Poprad; he was accidentally buried by some debris. I think that Mr. Přidal (Jan Přidal) describes it well in his book. When my father did not keep the diet, the disease came back. He was very sick. Local farmer, Mr. Moural (Karel Moural), who was there with him, asked the head doctor in Poprad. He said: ´Sir, I beg you, you see for yourself that Zdeněk is really totally devastated. You should sign his release.´ The doctor told him: ´Mr. Moural, I would do it, but I cannot. Because this man has a note in his papers from the municipal committee: His return is not desirable.´ So father was basically sent there as an unwanted man. He was sent there to be destroyed.”

“They saw that it was hopeless and so they sent father home some time in January. He died as a result of it on April 20, 1953. He died in house No. 11, where we were forced to move. They didn’t even allow us to accompany him on his last journey from our own farm. The funeral basically turned into a peasants’ demonstration. I have photograph from the funeral. An awful lot of people gathered there. And the communists disliked this gathering of so many people, I remember that, I was eight… This Mr. Hruška, who worked at the airport – there were planes flying low over the cemetery so that you couldn’t hear anything. We couldn’t even hear the words of the priest.”

“On Sunday in August 1968, when the tanks were riding around, I and my friend, who had got me a job in the Industrial Construction Company in Brno, were together after a night of partying. I slept in his place the day before the shooting in Prostějov. It happened at the end of Plumlovská Street in Krasice. Around two o’clock we walked to the town and all of a sudden, the Russians were riding through Prostějov and suddenly they began shooting from the town square to the Plumlovská Street. Every tenth round was tracer round, and I had already done my army service, but I have never experienced such fear in my life as when the shots were flying past me. I slammed my body to the ground and I waited until it was over. The shooting went right past me until the tanks passed by. That’s where they shot Langr. (Ladislav Langer – author’s note). And before that, they had shot that woman in front of the door (Marie Říhovská – auth.’s note)”