“Before the leaving examination the school had to ask for students’ personal evaluations, so-called cadre reviews, so that they could decide about students to be allowed to go for a leaving examination. I don’t know if it was an intention or just an accident, but the headmaster came and passed out those personal evaluations to us. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I was reading it. The local communists, I guess there were five in the village, wrote there, when I was reading it I froze, that my father was a kulak, who raised his children so badly that he also had nuns among his daughters. Two of my sisters were nuns, one died a long time ago and another one still lives in Belušské Slatiny. It was a wrongdoing, I would say, and additionally, my father tried to farm a bit, because he wanted to support the family. However, we weren’t kulaks; we had at the most fifteen hectares of land. We only had enough for us and we had to toil there. Well, as I had such bad personal evaluation I was in danger that I wouldn’t be accepted to school.”
“Before the trial in Nitra, there were various prisoners. Gypsies and many other women. We used to sleep here and there, but we had no beds, just some pallets, so we slept on them. It was worn down by lying and the like. I even got lice here in Nitra prison! Later, when I was moved to Pankrác and I had no idea about it, the doctor who examined us, asked me, ‘What was your civilian job?’ I said I was a nurse. Can you imagine how I felt then? A nurse with lice. And hygiene? It was horrible, I was so ashamed. Then, we had no shampoo. We only had kerosene and turban, so I had to have kerosene hair for three days and I even had to go for a walk wearing that turban. Thus all the women there knew I had lice. It was such demeaning experience that I haven’t spoken about it yet.”
“When I came to the lodge, I had to sign that I changed my clothes for theirs and that I left it there. And I told them, ‘Oh, you don’t have to write it, I have nothing special here and I hope I will go home soon.’ The man, who was taking my stuff, responded, ‘Well, I can say that it’s difficult to keep records, so you probably won’t go home as soon as you imagine it. We will see.’ I wasn’t put into a cell, I was sent to a remand centre. They were sitting there. I would say they weren’t very intelligent or educated, they really weren’t. I thought so, because I saw the text they wrote on a typewriter and there were so many grammatical mistakes. However, as a person, he was loyal, very kind and amiable. And he told me, ‘You acted as a chief there!’ ‘What chief, where?’ ‘Oh, come on, you had that group.’ ‘Well, and you say I was at the head of it.’ Of course, he immediately wrote it in the record; I was the chief. In fact he wasn’t right, we had no chiefs there. Maybe sometimes I said or suggested the time and place of our meeting or the like, but generally it wasn’t the truth. However, they said I was the chief, so then I was regarded as the chief and sentenced as the chief as well.”
“They drove us to Želiezovce and accommodated us there. Or rather, ‘accommodated’. However, it was still a bit better than before; Pankrác prison was much worse. We were in rooms where they used to breed sheep in the past. There even wasn’t any floor. I don’t remember if there was something on the ground, but we were about forty women in one room. There were bunk beds, so for forty people there were twenty bunk beds. Well, in a shed there was enough place for them, wasn’t there? There was one stove and nothing else. We had maybe two or three blankets. However, I was satisfied, I came there in August. I remember it was after the harvest and there were bales of straw in the fields. I came there at the time when the bales were being carted to one place. When a trailer was driven there, it was necessary to load those bales on it. I can say it took only two hours till I had bleeding calluses on my palms, so I even couldn’t hold pitchfork in my hands. It was horrible. I was glad when the evening came.”
“He called, ‘Take her to the cell!’ It was a room, I don’t know, half of this size. And, of course, it was a solitary cell. All right. I wasn’t cold, even though we were wearing only such thin linen clothes, trousers and jacket. But the worse was that the trousers were too loose and they were still falling down. I didn’t know how and where to get some bandage, because they certainly didn’t give us any. I would cope with it if I was at home. Once I stealthily grabbed a paper clip and used it as a button. He didn’t notice it, if he had, I don’t know, he probably wouldn’t give it to me.”
“When I worked in health service, we had quarterly and half-yearly bonuses. Well, it was not much. We got 200 or 300 crowns, but we were satisfied. You know, at that time every single crown mattered as my salary was about 1,200 crowns, so when we got 300 extra crowns, it was enough. When there was a meeting, I mean Revolutionary Trade Union Movement’s or company’s meeting, during which our work was evaluated, when my name was mentioned, they usually said I was really exemplary. I don’t want to brag, but they were satisfied. However, I was said I couldn’t get any bonus and I got honourable mention instead. In fact, I got no financial bonus. I thought, ‘I don’t need your honourable mention, you can keep it!’ I would prefer money. After coming back from prison, I got a letter from there that I had to pay for my stay there, which actually was very expensive, just like I stayed in an expensive hotel, it was several thousand crowns. Since I had no money for it, I submitted an application and ask them to be so kind and allow me to pay it in instalments. Then, I paid 150 crowns every month. You know, I had to pay it of my 1,200-crown salary. And without any bonuses, it was still present in my life.”
“Then, we had the first lunch, which we got in such metal dishes made of aluminium and they threw it to me under the door just like I was a dog or what. However, as my stomach was constricted I didn’t feel hungry at all. I caught it and was about to put it into my mouth when I suddenly smelt some strange malodours such like steel or the like and I wasn’t used to eating such things at home. It was some meat and rice and I threw it back. I didn’t eat it. I couldn’t eat it, though I have to admit that I got used to it later, I didn’t smell that stink so much. When I mentioned at home that we had to eat such bad meat, my brother in law heard it and said, ‘Certainly, at that time people had to deliver sheep or mutton quotas.’”
Františka Muziková was born on October 5, 1933 in Nitra into the family of small peasants as the seventh of ten children. She spent her childhood in the village of Kľačany near Hlohovec and since her early age she was raised in Christianity and her parents also led her to be independent and hardworking. After finishing the compulsory years at municipal school, she continued studying at the grammar school in Nitra and then at the State higher social-health school in Nitra. She managed to pass the leaving examination in 1954 and found a job in Nitra hospital as a scrub nurse even though her personal evaluation wasn’t satisfactory. Her anti-state activities started there, because she regularly met her colleagues after work at prayers, lectures, and contemplations. Many meetings and spiritual retreats were organised in cooperation with theologians such Augustín Štohl and then groups of “Bondservants of Virgin Mary” started to spread in the neighbourhood gradually. However, such activities were strictly forbidden by the communist regime and were regarded as an offence of consorting against republic. Františka was arrested on January 5, 1959, and after three weeks, which she spent in solitary cell and in remand centre, she was moved to Nitra prison. Prison conditions were tough, but as she said, the process of investigation was much milder than in the early 1950s. After a four-day long trial Františka was sentenced to two years of imprisonment and after an appeal to the Supreme Court her sentence was shortened by half a year. After passing judgement she was transported to Pankrác prison, where she started working in a prison hospital as a scrub nurse. However, only six weeks later Františka was moved again and then, another type of work awaited her - she had to work with pitchfork in the field in Želiezovce prison. There she met several of her soul mates and lifelong friendships were created there. When Františka served half of her sentence, she applied for parole. However, her plea was rejected immediately due to insufficient duration of her re-education. She was released on May 9, 1960, when the amnesty for political prisoners was proclaimed. After coming home, she refused to work in an agricultural cooperative and later she found a job in the Institute for Tuberculosis Treatment in Lefantovce. Since she really missed Nitra and its surrounding, she was moved to the Zobor sanatorium and finally after completing professional training, she was employed as a scrub nurse at the anaesthesiology in the Regional Institute for National Health. In her free time she studied the church history and in 1970 entered into marriage. Although she didn’t experience serious problems connected with being a former political prisoner, she often felt as a “second-class citizen”. The year 1989 was a real relief for her and she finally felt free from bonds of that heavy armour. Later she got involved in the Confederation of Political Prisoners of Slovakia and became its chairwoman in Nitra.
