Pavel Hubačka

“My name is Pavel Hubačka and I was born on May 18, 1925. I come from a farmer’s family – my dad had four hectares of land. We were nine altogether in the family.”

“My mother died in 1950. The girl that I was with, and that I was planning to marry, left me in three years. Thank God I have to say. I simply had no commitments. The prison authority didn’t support my release from prison. They didn’t recommend it because I had twelve disciplinary penalties. It was all for supporting somebody or something of the sort. When they opened the process again they asked me all kinds of questions, like if I had come to learn that I went wrong, or if I had the will to rehabilitate myself. I told them that I had been locked up for 13 years and hadn’t seen or heard about any changes so how could I judge if it was right or wrong.”

“First of all, they tried to break us mentally. They threatened to harass or harm our parents. They even claimed that my parents were encouraging me to confess because that would make the sentence lighter and I would be home sooner. Then came the interrogations. They knew a lot of things and wanted me to confirm or disprove them. I could hardly disprove anything as I spoke only for myself and for no one else. Therefore I claimed that I didn’t know about the things they were talking about, or that I couldn’t believe that it happened. Gradually, the interrogations were longer and longer and became physically exhausting. The interrogators were changing and therefore it was bearable for them. At some point you collapse – first mentally and then even physically. You simply become unable to object anymore. I had three interrogations that only ended when I passed out. The worst, however, were the interrogations when they were giving me electrical shocks. They were targeting sensitive spots on your body like the neck and they were increasing the intensity. You can take it even for three, maybe five hours before it becomes unbearable and you fall unconscious. When it becomes too much your brain switches off. These were the worst interrogations.”

“I was arrested roughly three or four days after the arrest of Pospíšil and Vymyslický but I don’t know exactly when they were arrested. The secret-police officers came at night – it was about two or three o’clock in the morning. They had the whole house surrounded and knew that I had hidden Vetejška at my place. Therefore, the first thing they were looking for when they came to me, was my bunker that I had from the war. They went to see it. Then they came in through the window into my grandmother’s room, surrounded the house and lined up my parents while pointing their machine guns at them. It was secret-police officers from Prague who arrested me. Pospíšil took them to my house. During the arrest they were constantly asking: ‘Where is Vetejška’?”

“Jožka Pospíšil called me to his place and introduced me to Vetejška, although I already knew him a bit because we used to be at the same school. Pospíšil told me that Jára had some plans with our organization and that he would take over the leadership from me. I told him the members would have to agree with it first. So we called up a meeting in a wine cellar at Petr Vymyslický’s place where Jára took over the resistance group.”