Václav Vlček

* 1944

  • “I maintained correspondence with several students, from Hawaii all the way to Germany. One student’s name was Josef Strauss. He had the same name as the minister of national defence at that time. He sent me a postcard and I received the postcard – there was a photo of the Brandenburg Gate with the wall. He wrote on the postcard: ‘This is the wall of freedom which our Soviet friends built for us.’ Soon after, three men from StB came to the student dormitory in the evening, and until the following morning they pressured me, repeating words like: ‘The sword of Damocles is hanging over you. Either you will tell us the name of the person who slanders our people’s democratic system, or you will not be allowed to graduate.’ It was ten days before the graduation exams. I had to give them all my correspondence which I had in my room. I did not tell them anything about anybody and to my surprise, the following day the school principal discreetly praised me and assured me that I need not be afraid and that I would be allowed to take the final examination.”

  • “Dad did not like to remember the Domeček (‘Little House’), where he had spent eight weeks. He said that they were mostly tortured psychically, by threats that their families would be destryoed, and they were being denied sleep. A 1000 Watt light bulb was kept on in the cell for the whole night and the warden was waking them up every thirty minutes. The prisoner had to say his name and do ten knee-bends. All-night interrogation sessions took place on a number of nights. For the rest of his life, dad considered the chimes from the nearby Loreta church repulsive. The psychic terror culminated in a midnight march through the dark Prague, when dad was followed by the prison commander Pergl and Šváb, who walked behind him with armed guns and dad expected that they would shoot him as a run-away. They walked all the way to the ministry of national defence where dad had his office.”

  • “They stepped on his glasses and broke them and dad was thus unable to read. On the following day they brought him a protocol and told him that he would be released because the accusations against him could not be proven. Mistakenly rejoicing, dad signed the protocol and only several weeks later he found out that it was actually a confession. At home I often asked my mom where dad was and she kept telling me that he was away traveling. Only one autumn evening she told me in tears that he was in prison. He was mostly interned in the prison in Prague-Pankrác, and we were allowed to go there for ten-minute visits, every three months, I think. The room for visitors was large and dismal and the prisoners were separated from us by a strong triple grey fence. In the corner of the room there was a notice board which all visitors read. I asked mom what was written there. She replied that the notice said: Today, the following persons were executed…”

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Vlček Václav
Vlček Václav
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Václav Vlček was born on May 9, 1944, one year before the end of the Second World War, into the family of air force colonel Václav Vlček. He experienced the persecution of his father, who was arrested in 1949 and sentenced in a staged trial to long prison term for high treason. Václav went to visit his father in prison several times. When he completed elementary school in Prague-Smíchov and his studies at the secondary school of geology in Příbram, Václav began working in the company Geological Survey Jihlava and later in the Central Geological Institute in Prague. In 1976 through 1989 he participated in geological expeditions to Kurdistan, Iraq and Syria. Whenever he returned from abroad, he always had to face increased attention from the State Security Police. In 1997-2013 Václav worked in the Office for the State Information System, which was later transformed into the Office for Personal Data Protection, and he continued working there until his retirement. Since 1976 he has been married to Ludmila Filgasová and they have two sons. At present, in 2017, Václav Vlček lives as a retiree in Prague 5.