“They were StB agents from Česká Lípa and there were so many interrogations – and I could not get a job. I inquired about some forty positions, from washing dishes to boiler-room operators… and I was even supposed to work as a cesspool truck driver in Cvikov; they promised me that they would hire me but when I arrived there, the lady manager very politely and apologetically told me that they had received a phone call from Ústí that they should not hire me.”
“The secretaries were all either StB agents or they were directed by the StB. And several of my colleagues had to leave during their studies – Kozlík, Březina – when they were in the second-year of their studies, they took down a Soviet flag from the seminary building. We then started writing letters and we defended people like Kocáb, for example, the father of Michael Kocáb, or Trojan, who lost the state approval for their political activity. We defended them and several of us students were therefore marked as untrustworthy. Since I had friends in BIS (the Czech Security Intelligence Service – transl.’s note) and at the Ministry of Interior, after the Velvet Revolution we then discovered that some of the professors were StB agents and that eleven percent of the priests were StB agents.”
“I acted based on that handbook, and it eventually worked well for me – do not answer any of their questions. I was thus silent for nine-five percent of the time of interrogation and I refused to answer. And if I answered anything during those five percent, they were just very general things, like when they asked how my family was doing, I said: ‘Quite well.’ Or they asked how do you like your work and I said: ‘It’s interesting.’ But if they asked about names, people, specific meetings, who met whom, I absolutely did not speak about these things – not at all.”
Miloslav Vašina was born October 1, 1946 in Pardubice. Since he was growing without a father, it was his legionnaire uncle who had the greatest influence upon him. Miloslav apprenticed as a locksmith and he finished his military service at the time when the Warsaw Pact armies occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968. While he was working as a road mender, he became aware of his calling for ministry as a priest. He graduated from the faculty of theology and he married in 1976. Miloslav signed Charter 77 in January 1977. He had not received the state approval for ministry as a priest until the Velvet Revolution and he was thus earning his living as a boilerman and sacristan, he worked in a quarry and also as an ambulance driver, a job which he held for the longest time. After 1989 he was ordained and he then worked in prison ministry until his retirement. With his wife they raised two children. Miloslav vašina passed away on Decebmer, the 17th, 2017.
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