When uncle Rudolf Syrovátka was arrested, we hid the guns with another relative
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Ivo Výborný was born on October 4, 1925 in Prague. His father worked as a dispenser for the Cooperative of Economic Distilleries, his mother was a housewife. After his parents’ divorce and his mother’s early death, Ivo grew up with his grandmother, whose son, Ivo’s uncle Rudolf Syrovátka, actively participated in the anti-Nazi resistance during World War II and was persecuted by the Nazis. After graduating from the high school in Dejvice, Ivo Výborný entered the Faculty of Law at Charles University and graduated with a doctorate in law in 1952. He started working in the legal department of the national enterprise Stavomontáž Praha and worked there as a clerk until October 1952, when he enlisted for the war in Bruntál. Shortly after February 1948 he became involved in the activities of an anti-communist group founded and led by his uncle Rudolf Syrovátka. The group tried to obtain secret information for foreign intelligence services, which was to be sent through agents (including the double agent Major Jaromír Nechanský). Ivo Výborný kept some of these messages with him and from the end of 1948 he also acted as a liaison between his uncle and other persons. He continued to pass on secret messages until October 1949, when Rudolf Syrovátka was arrested in connection with the case of Major Nechanský and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment by the State Court in Prague in 1950. In addition, after his uncle’s arrest, Ivo Výborný and other members of the group hid weapons with a relative. He was not arrested until February 1954, during his military service. He was first interrogated in Ruzyně, then imprisoned in Pankrác. Here, in the summer of 1954, the trial of Rudolf Syrovátka and Co. took place: Syrovátka was convicted a second time, this time for life, Ivo Výborný was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for the crime of treason. Výborný was first imprisoned in the Jáchymov region in Vykmanov, then transferred to the Leznice camp in the Horní Slavkov region. He met his uncle in another camp in Jáchymov, Rovnost, where, thanks to his uncle’s connections, he was reassigned to work in a mine cart repair shop. He spent three and a half years in the labour camps and was released on parole in 1957. After his release, he worked first as a wagon driver in the CSAD car transport company, then as a financial controller until his retirement. His uncle Rudolf Syrovátka was released after 14.5 years of imprisonment.