Miroslav Ilek

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Miroslav Ilek was born in Khust in Subcarpathia on 23 August 1923. His father was a lawyer, a district governor, then a political administration councillor in Uzhhorod. His mother was a housewife and taught German and French during the war. After the Hungarian occupation of Subcarpathia, the etnnically Czech family moved to Brno where Miroslav continued his grammar school studies. He graduated in 1941 and studied at a music conservatory. On total deployment, he worked on a large farm from 1943 as a foreman and tractor driver. After the war he enrolled in medical school. He organised student life and worked part-time at Czechoslovak radio as an announcer. He was kicked out of school and the radio because of his “anti-people” attitude immediately after February 1948. After a long job search, he found a worker job in a foundry in Brno. This is when he was approached by Jaroslav Caha, the leader of an illegal group linked to Western intelligence services. In addition to collecting economic intel, the group members were to take training in the West. The first of them, Miloslav Richter actually completed the radio operator in Regensburg, Germany, and came back. Miroslav Ilek was to go seocond but the StB already knew about their activity. Ilek was arrested on 19 April 1949 in his parents’ apartment. The six-month interrogations and beatings, took place in the StB villa in Pisárky and in Příční Street. The public trial took place in the autumn of 1949. Among others, the poet Zdeněk Rotrekl was convicted in the trial. Miroslav Ilek was sentenced to sixteen years’ imprisonment for treason and collusion against the Republic. He served his sentence in Bory, Ilava and Leopoldov prisons. His occupations included feather cleaning, crop binding, vegetable cleaning, and even assistant dentist jobs in Ilava and Leopoldov. In prison, he met General Jan Syrový and convicted communists such as Gustav Husák, Ladislav Novomeský and Artur London. As a result of his parents’ constant interventions, his sentence was reclassified and reduced to nine years in 1956. As he had already completed two-thirds of his sentence, he was released on parole soon after. He could not find a job even as a labourer for a long time. Eventually, much to his surprise, he was hired by a Brno music agency and made a living as a pianist in bars, wine cellars and at the Rozmarýn variety theatre later on. The State Security tried to get him to collaborate several times to no avail. In the lates 1960s, he managed to finish his medical studies. He became a doctor at the hospital in Bohunice where he worked until retirement in 1993. From the 1990s on, he was a member of the Confederation of Political Prisoners. He received an award as a participant in the anti-communist resistance. He died on September 16, 2017.