Miloslav Bulva

* 1932

  • "When we arrived, we were bald, therefore we have been taken for some kind of outcasts among the other prisoners, because in Zámrsk prison only prisoners who ran away used to be bald. The second or third day they sent us to work to shave the turnip. And since we have been so starved from the previous Chrudim town prison, we have cut some turnip for us too and ate it. We must have worked although our bodies weakened due to an insufficient meal servings wouldn’t allow us to even cut the turnip."

  • "We have come together few times and discussed what should be done or what we could do and finally we have decided to produce and to spread the flyers. We wanted to post them up on certain places of Litomyšl town and we have also thought about spreading them among people. At the time of making and printing of the flyers I was suffering the pneumonia, therefore I couldn’t participate even on the distribution of them ant that was probably the reason why I have been sentenced to only one year in prison later. Later on I saw the flyer and I also had it with me for some time. We kept handing it over so it wouldn’t stay on one place. It included the speech of the President Edward Beneš from the English radio. Above others he has highlighted the urge of fight against the communist regime just like our fathers used to fight against the Nazism."

  • "I didn’t know the two other men who accompanied me in the Pardubice town arrest where I spent one month. Therefore I couldn’t to prove the length of the stay there later on when I was applying for the rehabilitation. I didn’t really mind at the beginning, because it would increase my pension by only 15 Czech crowns. But then they have changed the law in 2005 or 2006, which would pay 2500 Czech crowns each month to all former political prisoners, but the only condition was to prove that you have spent at least one year in the prison. And I’m short just that one month. I have turned my case down to curt, but I have lost the case, so I don’t have any 2500 Czech crowns. Today I have pension of 9400 Czech crowns which is the average of pension these days. I would have to provide the evidence of my former prison - mates. But I didn’t know them. They must be death by now, because when we were in the prison they were already fifty years old. The StB (former communist secret police) doesn’t exist anymore and that’s how I have missed my chance for additional 2500 crowns each month with my pension. I’m very upset about the way the justice treaded me like."

  • "I have been arrested at the beginning of the year of 1949 while being at some part time job with our school. Some Mercedes 170 came in all of a sudden. They were looking for somebody named Bulva and that’s how I got arrested. This arrest was performed in order to do some short kind of an interview. They collected me at about 10am and they let me go home at about 5 or 6pm. The interview itself took place at the school, in one of the classes. Three StB agents - two men and one woman- were attending the hearing. Mr. Karel Metyš has been arrested already some time ago, I think in Brno town. Of course I was denying, denying and denying. They read - or they even let me read - the passage from the Metyš record. There I have discovered things I didn’t even know about. Like all the things we were supposed to be doing or things I couldn’t know about due to my pneumonia. They just beat it all out of him."

  • "What I was interested about was the kind of communication between each cell: there were flushing toilets and if you drained all the left over water from the toilet by using the cloth then you were able to talk to the cell above and below yours if they did the same with the toilet. There was a time set up in advance for this occasion, so we knew they will be ready. That’s how we talked to each other. The warders knew about it and maybe they have even listened to our conversation using some toilet, I don’t know, but maybe they really have."

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    Litomyšl, 11.07.2008

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„On February 24th 1948 students on our high school were not on strike.“

Miloslav Bulva
Miloslav Bulva
zdroj: autorka: Dominika Horáková

Mr. Miloslav Bulva was born on November 30th, 1932 in Litomyšl as the son of a private farmer. Just like his parents, Mr. Bulva became a member of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. After the end of the WWII he becomes a member of the Scout Movement where he remained until the end of this organization in 1948. Just before the events of February 1948, Bulva, along with his high school classmates, participated in the revolt operation against the general strike which supported the communist ministries. After the communist party revolution he was one of the establishing members of the revolt group. This revolt group‘s main task was to produce and publish the leaflets. The other members of this group were namely: Mr. Karel Metyš, Mr. Zdeněk Vašíček (both were his classmates) and Mr. Ota Rozkošný (student of the Engineering high school in Litomyšl). Later, two other men joined this group. They were Mr. Jan Pech (also student of the Engineering high school) and Mr. Bohuslav Chaloupka (a shop assistant). Mr. Bulva didn’t participated in the production process, because he got sick with pneumonia. The leaflets called for the organization of new democratic elections under U.N. supervision. Another leaflet printed was inspired by the ideas of President Edvard Beneš. It was probably during the summer of 1949 that this group was revealed and Mr. Karel Metyš was arrested. Half a year after the arrest of Mr. Karel Metyš, Mr. Bulva arrested as well. Before his trial in the summer of 1950, Mr. Bulva spent one month in custody in Pardubice, followed by another month, this time in Chrudim town jail. The state court trial with the ´ATA group´ - that’s how they referred to the revolt group of which Mr. Bulva was a member - took its place in October of 1950 in Smetana´s House in Litomyšl. The main leader of this completely artificial trial known as ´Stříteský and company´ was announced some Mr. Stříteský, the chancellor of the Apiarist house. According to the court, the ATA group intended to connect with the terrorist group known as ´Budislav town rebels.´ The ATA group was supposed to be collecting weapons in order to arrange a disturbance of the people’s democratic establishment. Mr. Miloslav Bulva was sentenced to one year in the Youth correctional center in Zámrsk, where he probably did agricultural labor. The regime in this center was built on the ideas of Makarenko‘s „experiments“, or the re-education of youth with a strict daily regimen that focused on labor and political training along with maintaining order and cleanliness. After his dismissal a year later, Mr. Bulva wasn’t allowed to finish his studies. He could only choose from the two work branches: either the building industry or the mines. Mr. Bulva chose the building industry and started to work at the saw mill as a handyman. Later, after many difficulties, he managed to get a drivers license and became a truck driver for the next eighteen years.