The worst three months in his life

In April 1951, the then seventeen-year-old Lubomír Gižický was transferred to the regional directorate of the Secret State Police, (StB), in Moravská Ostrava. “I really hate to speak about it, frankly, I don’t even like to read the books of the other inmates who experienced the same hell as me. It makes me suffer mentally. These were the worst three months of my life,” says Lubomír Gižický, who was nevertheless eventually willing to give his account of the brutal interrogation practices of the StB. “To this day I haven’t found out who was beating me and who interrogated me. They effectively blindfolded me putting glasses on my eyes that didn’t let any light pass through. A guard led me by the hand into an office where I sat down in a chair. My hands were handcuffed behind my back and I became a punching bag. For three months they interrogated me in this way, even though they knew everything all the time. I don’t understand why they had to do it. When the interrogations finally ended, my heels were smashed and the doctors in Tišnov had to put me back together.” In the end, Lubomír was forced to sign a false protocol on the interrogations: “I looked at it and it said that I had been treated decently in the course of the interrogations. I said that I couldn’t sign this. The investigator pressed a button, the “boys” came in and threw me into the cellar. Without my shoes, wearing only socks, pants and a shirt. It was a room underneath the stairs, maybe just a little bit larger than a chair. I don’t know how much time I spent there because it was completely dark there. I think it was a long time. At first, I was terribly cold lying on the concrete floor but then it stopped to hurt. Then a guard brought me some chicory and half a slice of bread. I told him: ‘tell them that I’ll sign it’.”