„You know, he came back in the same clothes he had worn when they had arrested him ten years before that. And because back then they arrested him at home, in the yard, he had very casual clothes. Then he probably grew bigger during the years, so he couldn’t button up the shirt, that’s how tight it was. Well it was… it wasn’t pretty.”
„At first, the visit was only about 10 minutes long, 10 minutes. When out mother had a picture to show, she had to show it to the police officer first. And if he approved, there was this slit like it used to be in saving banks, just to slip something through. Well, but then with time it eased up more and more, until it became an hour-long visit. But they never let more than two of us in. Mum always wanted us to take turns, that’s pretty logical. Grandma, his mother, she couldn’t come there anymore, but my father still had a sister. She would also come sometimes. When the visit was let’s say once every 6 months, we often didn’t get there at all.”
„November 17, 1950 he was sentenced to 16 years in prison, his property to be confiscated, his civil rights to be taken away and a fine to be paid. Well, one couldn’t even believe that something like that is possible just because he disagreed with the new regime. Because he didn’t do anything else, nothing else was proven. The only thing was that the central character in the indictment was a certain Mr. Hanák. But later it emerged that he had in fact been an agent of theirs. He visited people and when he did, he mentioned that he had come from abroad, from the West. And because people didn’t turn him in, he immediately arrested all of them.”
„After that we didn’t have anything to work with. The tractor was confiscated immediately, as well as all the tools. Our mother was left here all alone. She used to have some helpers, but she couldn’t employ those anymore. So when the entire village finished harvesting the crop in 1950, we still had nothing done, because one person simply couldn’t manage it alone. And here in Malšice there were only three people who weren’t afraid to help her. People would have helped her, but they were scared to even be in touch with her, they didn’t want to end up like our father. That was the situation back then. Well, so with the help of these people we somehow managed to finish up the harvesting that year.”
„When our father came back, we talked about these situations many times. In the end even he confirmed it and we agreed that he was locked up, he had to follow a specific regime of that place, but otherwise he had no other worries. His worries only concerned him. Our mum, on the other hand, had to care for three children and for her mother-in-law who was already sick at that time and was unable to do much. Well, maybe she stoked the fire sometimes. And so we agreed that it was like this. That she was punished, and he just lived his life there. Whereas she had to look after us, to clothe and feed us.“
„And the younger sister, she just couldn’t believe it. She became, to put it mildly, so indoctrinated, from school, from the Pionýr organization, that she kept saying: ‘He must have done something that they arrested him, he must have done something.’ Whereas us, we already understood it differently.”
Ladislav Křivánek was born April 21, 1942 in Malšice. His father Ladislav was a landowner and mayor of Malšice and was not a supporter of the newly established Communist dictatorship. Ladislav’s father was arrested in 1950 and 6 months later a kangaroo court sentenced him to 16 years in prison and confiscation of all property. The witness’ mother was left alone with three small kids in a looted house. The father was released after an amnesty in 1960. Meanwhile, Ladislav graduated from an agricultural high school and started working in the local collective farm (JZD) after doing his military service. He could only finish studying university in České Budějovice in the form of distance learning during the political loosening of the late 1960s. He worked as an agronomist in a cooperative and later worked in an insurance company.
