František Polák

* 1952

  • “On 21 August we agreed to make some mess so they would realize that not everyone was with them. But on 21 August it was impossible to even get to the square. They had it all surrounded, including a school where this statue of Lenin was. There were soldiers, militiamen, SNB-men and Auxiliary guards. There were more people than on May Day. No one could get there without being searched. So we went back to the square, to Koníček, a pub that we used to go to. We ordered drinks and started arguing. On the next day after work we met in a mess hall. Ondra told me: 'Let's go, right?' And I said: 'I've been waiting to see what you've got.' He said that he had something indeed, and he opened his jacket and showed me this twenty gram stick of explosives. So I told him there was nothing more to discuss. Let's grab some beer and start at midnight. They were closing at ten, at Koníček. So we have been hanging there till ten. As we left Koníček I found out that he had three sticks of explosives, not just one. I was saying: 'Let's not push it too hard, let's use just one and leave the rest for next time.' So we would laugh at it and we went to the square. No one was around, I could be around half past eleven. I said: 'You have the experience, you will blow it up.' He said he wouldn't let me touch it anyway and laughed. On the left of Gottwald statue there was 'Velký Kotel', a pub, and on the right there was 'Malý Kotel', another pub. And there were those two streets. 'So I will watch these two streets and I will give a whistle in case anyone is coming.' And I was waiting for the final result. But I didn't see the final result, as it was such a blast that I would just run away on all four as fast as I could. We went there only after three days, to see it lying there among all the mess.”

  • “I didn't forgive the communists and I never will! All that humiliation and those restrictions. Looking back, today you can do almost anything you want to, but we used to go like sheep, with our heads down. And anyone who dared to speak was punished. I can't! I can't forgive them! No one could ask me to do that. It's too powerful...”

  • “Most of them, when there was changing of the guards, went down the corridor and they had batons – like those you could see in movies, walking around banging on cell bars – they went around banging on doors as there were no bars. There were just bars on the windows. So we knew that they were changing. And after some time, you could guess which warden was in charge at given moments. As if they couldn't sleep, they won't let us either. And when they came drunk, that was something. As it would happen, they weren't allowed to do it, but they did it anyway, that they would just drag their favourite inmate out of the cell and play football with him or so. They would kick him like the ball. As the floor was so well polished that you could just grab someone by the hand, it didn't require much strength, and you could just drag him as you liked to, so slippery it was. Or they would play hockey, they would get hockey sticks and push him around like a puck. And the more he would scream the more they would beat him. That was just inhumane, the things that had been happening there.”

  • “So I just told them that I refused to work there, after I saw what those boys looked like after just a few years – parched by the head, their fingers crippled, their joints all dried out so they could hardly walk. So I resisted. I signed up for a meeting with the chief to put forward my complaint. The chief would see me and they would beat me up. I had to spend twenty-one days in the Third Section, where they would beat me up again for my rudeness. And after I got out from this Third Department, I went back to work, accompanied by a warden who had reported this whole thing in the first place, so I would throw him down the stairs. I knew that they would give me another sentence, but that was a price I was willing to pay. And I knew there would be another court hearing and another sentence, three years at least. So it ended up badly again, but as I would have to meet him all the time and there had been no guarantee that I would behave, that I would leave him be, they transferred me to Liaz. There I was working as a lathe operator, drilling-machine operator and grinder operator, making quite a lot of money, and I spent my whole sentence there, six years and six months.”

  • “When I came to my senses I found myself in this room, two by three meters maybe, almost empty, just a toilet in the corner, and a bucket of water next to it. I kept telling myself: 'Where am I?' So I got up and started banging on the door, there was this little window in it. So the window would open and I would put my face right next to it, and they would punch me, I would fall down without finding anything. Later, the window would open again, and after my previous experience I rather kept my distance. And this little shovel would emerge and a plate with some food on it showed up. So I took the plate and fed myself, then this little shovel reemerged and they would take the plate away. And this went on for three days, no one would pay attention to us.”

  • “We went from Koníček, from the pub, at half past ten, and I said: “Look, the square is already empty.' And there were Russian flags all around Gottwald and so on. And maybe, or maybe almost certainly, the fact that we've been drinking added to all that, and I would say: 'Look, you know what, we will take him down with all those flags.' So we tied those three sticks of explosives to the statue, and Ondra said: 'Go to the ground.' There were those two side alleys maybe hundred meters away from the statue. 'So no one would come near. I can watch the other side, and God forbid anyone will get hurt.' We were already familiar with the area. I said: 'Okay then.' So we would set up the scene and I went to the right and Ondra to the left. Then we would give a whistle as a signal that it was all clear and Ondra would blow it all up. All I could see was a blast, then the statue went up and down again, broken to pieces. Then we would part and just disappear in opposite directions.”

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For blowing up a Statue of Gottwald, he had to endure the Valdice prison. He hasn‘t forgiven the communists

František Polák as a young man
František Polák as a young man
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

František Polák was born on 7 December 1952 in Jirkov. He had ten siblings. After attending elementary school he trained as tiler and bricklayer. While in in training he was apprehended after he gave an anti-communist speech on the May Day of 1970. In the mid 1970 he did his two-year compulsory military service and had to serve for another year and a half due to disorderly conduct. In the end he was transferred to a uranium mine in Příbran after he had been caught selling army petrol. In August 1978 he had helped to destroy the statue of Klement Gottwald by explosives. He and his companion, Ondřej Stavinoha, did this in protest on the anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. They were both arrested after being denounced by a friend and interrogated at Prague‘s Ruzyně prison. František was sentenced to seven years in Valdice prison. He had been constantly brutalised by wardens. He left prison after seven years in August 1987. He strived to find a job. From the 1990s he operated a small shop at the Jirkov‘s housing estate. In summer 2021 he was living in Jirkov.