“These guards were pigs… Guards who had nothing in common with humans. I remember when they were beating a young man in the correction cell next door and their wives were shounting form the flats which were right opposite the prison to give him some more: ‘Beat the bastard, they wanted to break down our republic. Give him more!’ And they killed the boy. There was nothing I could do. It was a terrible storm and the boy thought that he saw his father in the lightning. He was so beaten that he began hallucinating and cried: ‘This is your Zdeněk, father, father can you see me? You have finally found me…’ He shook the window and the frame fell on him. The guards ran inside and beat him to death. Those are really thrilling memories. And the worst thing was that there was no way I could help.”
“When they took me from the court, the corridors were full of people. The whole Vizovice must have come. Most of the time they wanted to shake my hand… Then someone with a lot of badges on his jacket came, spat in my face and said: ‘Swine, we are building a people’s republic for workers and your fathers and you are trying to screw it up.’ And then he spat in my face again. I said: ‘You Bolshevik pig you think you achieved anything?’ Then I just wiped my face and went on.”
"I have my theory. It is better to attack and let the other defend himself. And I also used it with the guards. Like the guard Hejsek. Once he almost broke my jaw. He started with a fist at me and almost broke it. I didn’t mind and I told him: ‘Now, tell me commander, why would you take a job for swine?’ And he said: ‘I will tell you the truth, I was rotten to the bones. Where would I get three thousand crowns in cash? I beat you and I have it. Do you know how would I have to toil in the factory?’ This is what he said. Then when we were often at the solitary cells, you wouldn’t believe how his conscience must have been working… He brought me anything that was left in the kitchen. He never forgot to stop by at my window.”
“…they did it for fun. They skipped one cell and went to the other… Maybe this was the way they relaxed. A pistol in one hand and the club in the other. You can never stand beating with a club. Beating with a nightstick is easy. You have black bruises after that. They change color after some time and disappear within three months but the club was mortal. And when they hit you twice in the same place it was unbearable. Once I was in a TV debate with Hruška and he confirmed it. He said that once he was hit eight times. You usually lost consciousness soon but that was a savior because you didn’t feel anything and it didn’t matter what they did to you. But if you had been still conscious and had said something or screamed they would have killed you."
“His last hours were dismal. I was with him at six o’clock and I managed to bring him some potatoes in the ‘tailcoat’ and butter in a cup smaller than this… This was a diner of the heroes. The last words he spoke to me were: ‘Father, how come that this nation, to which I sacrificed even my private life and whose name I have always protected (he was instrumental in getting international help to the Soviets and he also played an important part in the battle of Stalingrad), how come that this state is taking my life now?’ And I told him: ‘Listen¨, if any of the hundred thousand that listened to Gottwald stand up to testify against you it wouldn’t mean nothing, because this is just a sewage that flooded Prague. The nation will once be proud that there was a man as brave as you. You will find yourself in the history books once.’ In the night, the only one that could visit him was his son and in the morning, 21st of June, quarter to six he was hanged at the dump under your window.”
Full recordings
1
římskokatolická fara ve Vražném pod Jeseníkem, 20.10.2007
Antonín Huvar was born in 1922 in Albrechtičky, North Moravia. In 1942 he passed the graduation exam and entered the seminary in Vidnava. In 1947 he was ordained a priest and started his ecclesiastical service in Vizovice, where he also participated in the activities organized for the local youth. After February 1948 he participated in the distribution of pamphlets mocking the new regime. He was arrested in September 1948 and transported to Zlín. After a few days he was taken to Uherské Hradiště where he was interrogated also by the infamous Alois Grebeníček. The interrogations carried on for two months and the trial took place in November. Huvar was judged at the State Court in Uherské Hradiště as a head of an ‘organized’ group whose members in most cases never even met. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. He served the whole sentence in labor camps at Libkovice, Jiřetín, in prison at Bory, in the uranium mines at Rtyně v Podkrkonoší and in nine other penitentiary institutions. At Bory he shared a cell with general Heliodor Píka, sentenced to death. He left the prison walls of Valdice (Kartouzy) in 1958, returned to Albrechtičky to his mother and worked for nine years as a fish warden in the area around his native village. In 1967 he regained the state permission and began preaching in Fulnek. In the Normalization period, Huvar lost the permission again and worked in the Fulnek basilica. In 1982, he regained the permission for a second time. In 1998 he was decorated for his contributions to the development of democracy, humanity and human rights with the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk of the III. class. He died in september 2009 in Nový Jičín.
