"When the Russian front reached Slovakia, I set out and walked through Moravia and Bohemia. All the way to Pilsen to the Škoda factory and I applied for work there. But the Germans were still there. I remember that I walked through the entire Moravia. I had no money. In Slovakia they had cigarettes and I bought them there. I was then paying with cigarettes to get lunch and so on. I slowly made my way to Pilsen."
"I didn’t want to confess anything and I was thus beaten, a lot, at the Secret Police station. They wanted to know the names of my coworkers. They would slap me and I would just say, ´I don’t know.´ Later they arrested my coworker Kouklová from Klatovy. They detained her and ordered her to clean the hall. As she was doing the cleaning, she told me, ´Jarda Kusý ran away.´ Kusý was our leader. When they were interrogating me again, I told them, ´All right, I will tell you the name of my coworker – Jarda Kusý.´ They went to get him but he was already in Germany."
"We copied the illegal newspaper in the village of Mačice. Local people were helping us – there was Mačl, a local farmer, Birhanzl, who was distributing the papers, Zelenka who worked in the village, and Kouklová, Jarda Kusý’s friend. We copied it in Mačice and Birhanzl was distributing it and giving it to people in other towns. We were publishing a magazine called, 'The Voice of the Silenced'."
"The Germans came suddenly in 1939. I remember the investigation. One of our schoolmates, Badler, was a Jew. The poor guy got dismissed form school, immediately. I met him in the hallway and he told me, ´They kicked me out, but why? I had straight A’s!´ The poor boy then was sent to a concentration camp. We had to continue studying and in 1941, we took our graduation exams with a German teacher, as the head of the examination committee. I was asked to give a lecture called, 'Das dritte Reich.' Since I speak German well, I managed fine. The German examining teacher asked me a question, ´What is the name of the German minister of foreign affairs?´ That was an elementary question. All the other teachers were whispering, trying to help me, ´Ribbentrop.´ I answered, ´Ribbentrop.´ I actually passed my graduation exam on the basis of this."
"We used to meet quite a lot in Mariánská and we organized theatre performances there. I remember that Bořek Fiala, who died recently, was involved in the theatre with us and played female roles. I don’t remember what play it was but Borek played a woman’s part there. The wardens’ wives came to see the performance and they were offended by it. The wardens then forbade us to do theatre."
PaedDr. Richard Průcha was born July 8, 1921 in Pilsen, but his family comes from Pačejov near Horažďovice. In 1937-1941, he studied trade academy in Pilsen. During the war, he worked in the Škoda factory, just like his father. He was sent to, Dubnica nad Váhom for conscripted labour. Where Škoda had another factory. At the end of the war, he returned from Slovakia. Walking all the way home. After the war, he did his military service and he completed school for reserve officers. He became a member of the People’s Party Youth, he was active in Orel (Catholic sports association - transl.’s note), and in the People’s Party circles. At first, he worked in the Škoda factory. Then, from 1946 until his arrest in 1949, he worked as a teacher at the elementary school of metalworking in Pilsen and studied the Faculty of Education at Charles University in Prague. After February 1948, together with Jaroslav Kusý, he began publishing an illegal magazine of the People’s Party titled, “The Voice of the Silenced”. Which was a continuation of the paper, “Sentry of the Czech West”. Their group of coworkers was revealed and in June 1949, Mr. Průcha was arrested and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment. He served his sentence in Prague-Pankrác and in the Jáchymov region in the labour camps: Mariánská, Bratrství, Vykmanov, Elko and Horní Slavkov. He was released in amnesty in 1955. After his release, he worked in manual and office jobs, especially in the Union of Production Cooperatives in the cooperative Stonework, Granite Quarries and Tombstones. Through distance learning, he was able to study the secondary school of civil engineering, from which he graduated in 1962. He then worked in the Department of the Chief Architect of the City of Pilsen, until his retirement in 1982. Since, he had not been allowed to complete his studies at the Faculty of Education after February 1948, in 1991 he was rehabilitated by a decree issued by the Charles University Faculty of Education. He was also awarded his academic title. He was a member of the Confederation of Political Prisoners in Pilsen and of the sports association Orel in Pilsen, of which he was the honorary chairman. Richard Průcha died in 2017.
