Otakar Nigrin

“The trial actually proceeded so that we were the last out of previously tried in the group and didn’t really know, what the others said before us. It was just the way the secret police asked for it I reckon. But we were lucky it was only after the death of Stalin and Gottwald and everything was a little bit more relaxed. (Were there any requirements on part of investigators, in respect of how you should talk?) No, there were none. Not with us. Maybe with those, who got more years than we did, that is possible, but not with me. They didn’t even beat me during interrogation, but put massive psychological pressure on me, threatening to lock up my parents, to nationalise everything so that we lose it all, just for me to confess where we had the secret hide, what we put in there, with whom we cooperated, who they didn’t know about yet... psychological pressure was really immense. Two young boys were interrogating us, and I could see they were manual working class cadres.”

“They came to arrest me in Benešov; four secret police policemen came driving on a single car together. I was actually gone, and when I came home, they took the whole villa, locked up dad and mum in a single room. And they kept waiting for me. When I opened the door I had a gun behind my back. I was just a young boy, but they treated me as if I was a real criminal. They chased me around the house with a pistol behind my back.”