Stanislav Vobejda

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  • Interviewer: “What was it like when you came there?” - “Tough, it was tough. It was bad. They brought us there and placed us on the third floor. The cell was designed for two people, but there were six or eight of us, I don’t remember. The ward’s commander was Šepík. It was in January, and the window was broken. We were working on stripping feathers....Nearly frozen to death, because it was in January. It was manageable during the day, but at nights… We were supposed to have clothes – well, you can’t call it clothes! A shirt, underwear, trousers, something which looked like a bad coat. We were supposed to keep our clothes neatly folded. And since we didn’t, Šepík woke us up at night and ordered: ´Take all your clothes off and stand by the wall till the morning.´ In this cold weather. And why? Because we had put the clothes on, which was interpreted as preparation for escape. But we were on the third floor, in Bory, there was nothing around there! A broken window. And we only had shoelaces and a belt... He was an evil man, he was from Ukraine, and he was a real beast!”

  • “There were three types of food stamps. If you didn’t complete the work standard of hundred percent, you got a green stamp. The standard ration was four dumplings and some sauce to go with it – that was a meal for a miner! It was for surviving, but not for a man to fill twelve wagons a day – to throw the stuff in, etc. If you didn’t meet this standard, you got a green stamp, and if you worked even less, then they put you into a bunker or a corrective cell. And there you got only two dumplings. It was barely enough to survive, you couldn’t go on like that. Were it not for the guys...if the warden, or the one distributing food, didn’t secretly give you more from time to time, then you pegged out.”

  • Interviewer: “Did you think that you might get a death penalty?” – “To be honest, I thought so. I only thought that the worst moment would be just before they put my neck into the noose. Otherwise I was pretty tough with myself. But I could not understand one thing: Why? What was this penalty for?”

  • Interviewer: “What would be your message, what do you consider important? – “People should know that all evil causes evil. And that whatever comes from the East has never been worth a penny…”

  • “If I had believed I would serve the entire sentence, I would have hanged myself. Because this was slow dying. But we trusted in one thing: that it could not last. If not soon, then within a certain time, it had to collapse. And it did. You see, these Hitler’s talks about the one-thousand years rule, and the Bolsheviks who claimed to be here for time eternal. And now you see it has all collapsed.”

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    Praha , 30.09.2008

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„We wanted to make the comrades realize that it might turn against them.“

Vobejda Stanislav
Vobejda Stanislav
zdroj: Stanislav Vobejda

Stanislav Vobejda was born November 5, 1930 in Proseč. After completing higher elementary school in Slatiňany he went to study at the Salesian grammar school in Fryšták in Moravia for one year. After his return home, he began working as a forester trainee in Posekanec. In 1949 he joined an anti-communist group which was founded in Proseč by his friend Josef Odehnal. Stanislav Vobejda had firearms as his hobby, and he was even able to obtain an automatic firearm for the group. The gun was never used, because the group disbanded soon after. Several people who had not been involved at all were however arrested due to the hiding of the weapon. After one action in Proseč, when the group fired a gun once into a window of the Party official Čoudek, two of its members fled the country and the automatic gun was subsequently passed over to other persons and concealed. In spring 1949 Vobejda decided to escape as well, but he didn‘t manage to cross the borderline in western Bohemia and he was arrested. For an illegal attempt to leave the country he was sentenced in Cheb to one year of imprisonment and a fine to 10 000 Czech Crowns. The group meanwhile continued in conducting intimidatory activities in their hometown. Josef Lněnička became their leader, but only for a short time, because in September 1949 the State Police found out about the group and arrested its members. Investigation brought the StB to Cheb, where Vobejda was imprisoned for his attempt to leave the country. He was transported to Pardubice and investigated in relation to the activities of Lněnička and his friends. The motives behind the shooting into the official Čoudek‘s window in spring 1949 were revealed as well. A large-scale trial with 19 participants was held in October 1950; most of the accused had only minor involvement in the group, or none at all. The individuals in court knew each other because they came from the same small village, but they mostly saw each other for the first time when they were brought to the courtroom. Stanislav Vobejda was sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment for high treason. The months in solitary confinement in Pardubice and in custody in Chrudim were counted into his sentence and after the trial he served his sentence in Pilsen-Bory, Písek, and in the uranium mine labour camp Vojna near Příbram. He was released in 1956.