“In the past the Chods guarded the borders against an enemy from the outside. We also patrolled the borders. I was still young, so I wasn’t doing it so much, but my father did. He knew the area well, and he has helped many people. Now it was the other way round. In the past the Chods were patrolling the borders and the sovereign gave them rewards for it. And we got our reward, too: looking for a hole in the Iron Curtain: a hole leading out of the country.”
“His next question was: ´What will you do after your release?´ I replied: ´You know, Mr. political educator, my origins lie in agriculture, and thus I would like to work in agriculture.´ He says: ´That’s good. There are cooperatives being formed now. What do you think about our cooperative efforts?´ I told him: ´Mr. political educator, the idea of cooperativism is the only way to help our farmers.´ It was tricky, because I had the idea of cooperative farming as such in my mind – like the cooperatives based on self-help, for example machinery coops, or when farmers formed groups and helped each other. But he obviously had kolkhoz in his mind. Thus he was perfectly satisfied with my reply and he literally beamed.”
“There were border patrols. At that time, in the 1950s, it was still relatively free. There were no barriers, and you only had to find out when the patrol passed by. If you were careful, it was possible to cross the border in the places that my father knew.”
“Sutty came, because major Rachač was to return.” – “Do you know why he went to Prague?” – “He had some mission there, he was assigned some tasks. Do you understand? And they caught him there.” – “And he was supposed to come back?” – “He was to come back, but he didn’t. StB men came instead, and they waited for Sutty.” – “And they caught him right here, in the Touš family farm?” – “They got him here. There was shooting. When I came home, the handle on the door had been shot off.”
"The period in Klatovy was quite tough. I contracted scarlet fever. I was already over twenty years of age. I had a very high fever. The doctor whom they called ordered that I be taken to the hospital. Because I had a very high fever, I was in agony. But the StB policemen said: ´He’s not going anywhere.´ So I was relieving myself with only Aspirin, and that was it. Believe it or not, there was a warden, a certain Václav Suchý, he was the only one to... In order to avoid drinking water from the toilet, it was the best water, because if they gave you a jar with water and they left it there for a long time, and I was in the solitary cell for several months, then water from the toilet was better. Suchý would always come at night and ask: ´Do you have enough to drink?´ And he would bring me a pot, a one-litre pot or even bigger, of black coffee.”
Josef Touš was born November 9, 1929. He comes from Pocinovice, where he lives to date. His life has revolved mainly around his native farm “U Vítků.” The Touš family lived in a secluded area by a forest in a village near the border line. They used the advantageous location of their family farm for hiding refugees at the end of the war and also after 1948. His father Václav Touš guided refugees over the Iron Curtain to Germany. Josef Touš helped him, especially by arranging shelter and food for the refugees. The Touš family later began cooperating with agent-walker Alois Sutty. Many emigrants were passing through their estate to Germany, and it also became a hiding place for the incoming agents-walkers. The entire network was revealed in April 1950 in relation to a mission by major Rachač. The Touš family and Sutty were attested, and together with members of another group from Klatovy, who had been also been guiding people over the border, they were tried as an anti-state group of “MUDr. Krbec and Co.” Josef Touš was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was imprisoned in Prague-Pankrác and in the Jáchymov region, where he worked in the Eliáš mines, Svatopluk (near Slavkov) and Prokop. In 1955 he was released on parole. He refused to work in a local agricultural cooperative, which had unjustly taken over their farm. He was working in an agricultural machinery station; after its closing down he worked in forestry. Due to health problems, which were related to his work in the Jáchymov camps, he was receiving an invalidity pension. Then he worked in machine works in Kdyně until his retirement. At present he is the chairman of the local chapter of the Confederation of Political Prisoners in Domažlice.
