When We Heard the Keys in the Keyhole We Got Stiff

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Jaromír Jarmara went through series of brutal question in Bartolomějská Street, (police headquarters), and was transferred to Pankrác Remand Prison in 1949: “There they gave me the cell and threw me a blanket. I smelled the blanket and told to myself: ‛Everything is bloody, dried-up gunk. How can I stand it? ’” And the questionings seemed endless. Beating and humiliation over and over again. Each prisoner was afraid whose turn it is: “As we heard the keys in the keyhole we got stiff and waited for who they call." They still tried to get Jaromír´s confession. The interrogators were irritated by his denying so they used sadistic methods. During one of the last questionings they caused him mild brain injury. After the trial, Jaromír Jarmara got back to Pankrác Remand Prison again. Though he was condemned to life imprisonment he was, by mistake, put into the death row where the condemned waited for death: “It was a horrible night. I was in the death row.” Afterwards he was replaced to the ordinary cell and worked in the prison joinery. Once, his foreman sent him to fix the doorsill in the correction room. Jaromír Jarmara never forgot what he heard and saw there. In that moment they tortured his brother Věroslav there. “I felt awful. I was used to beating, but I felt so sorry for him because he could not defend himself. His hands and legs tied and neck in chains," Jarmara recalled.

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Jaromír Jarmara

Mr. Jaromír Jarmara was born in 1923 in Třeština, near Mohelnice. After the events of February of 1948, being a frontier guard, he was in contact with lieutenant Voborský who cooperated with the resistance group called "Praha-Žatec," (Prague - Žatec). This group intended to overthrow the communist dictatorship using a military coup. Jaromír Jarmara used to pass them information about people from the West who cooperated with the StB, (StB - former secret state police - translator´s note). Unfortunately this group was revealed and Mr. Jarmara was arrested. Later, on March 2nd 1949, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The original verdict was the death sentence and some of the Třeština citizen didn´t hesitate to sign it. Mr. Jarmara spent nearly ten and a half of years in miserable life conditions, specifically in Pankrác, Bory, Leopoldov and in Valdice prisons. During these years he met many of the famous people such as Colonel Karel Lukas or General Karel Janoušek and other officials. Also his brother, Věroslav Jarmara, was arrested because of political problems. While in Leopoldov prison, Jaromír Jarmara married his girlfriend, Svatava, on behalf of his father. She was dismissed immediately from her work however and couldn´t find another job for a few years. After Mr. Jarmara´s release, they returned to his home town. The local inhabitants' didn´t welcomed him though and he even could get any job there. He even had to face the threats of new imprisonment for parasitism. Finally he got job at the MEZ factory in Postřelmov. He got the worst job there and was under permanent supervision by the director. Even his kids experienced many problems including admittance to their school. Today Mr. Jarmara lives in Hrabová.

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Pankrác

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During the First Czechoslovak Republic they executed people here on the gallows. The number of the casualties cannot be even compared with the period of Nazi occupation. Between 1943 and 1945 they executed over a thousand of people, including women, by guillotine in the so-called “axe room.” After the war there were public executions of Nazi criminals and collaborators. The executions continued during the communist period and since 1954, Pankrác prison was the only place of executions in Czechoslovakia. The last death penalty was executed in February 1989. The total number of the executed was 1580.