Contact men could go through the bars

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In 1972 Ivan Binar started to serve his sentence in Bory prison. He was sentenced for some of his artistic activities that endangered socialistic regime allegedly. Political prisoners along with Binar were placed to cells together with common criminal convicts. The reason was to prevent political prisoners from any mutual contact. At that time also Petr Uhl, a reform activist back from 1968, served his sentence. Uhl was systematically breaking the isolation. „On Sundays we could freely move all across the facility,“ Ivan Binar remembers. „And some guy who was also political and sentenced according to the catch I. against the republic, took me to Petr.“ So that is how they met. According to Binar Petr Uhl was a very good organiser and for he had been in prison for three years already, he had enough time to establish a contact network connecting all political prisoners. What was its purpose? „Of course we were not trying to blow up the jail altogether with a kind of sherbet bomb, but we just wanted to stay in touch,“ claims Ivan Binar. „The jail is pretty big, there are eight buildings and Petr´s connections could as if walk through the bars.“ This way Ivan Binar could meet the representative of revival process, the general Prchlík. With his theatre colleague Schiffauer he even wrote a new musical for children called ´Bird, give us back the water goblin´ (Vrať nám, ptáku, hastrmana).

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Ivan Binar

Born on 25 June 1942 in Boskovice in Moravia, graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in Ostrava in 1963, studied Czech linguistics, history and arts, performed as a stage actor in the theater “Pod okapem” in Ostrava, did his basic military service in 1963–1965 worked in the education sector till 1968 was editor of the “Tramp” magazine in 1968 - 1971 was one of the founders of the Waterloo theater, played in the piece “Son of the regiment” arrested in 1972, held in custody and sentenced to 12 months for agitation, incarcerated from August 1972 to February 1973 in the Bory prison in Pilsen signed the Charta 77 in January 1977, went into Austrian exile in May 1977 worked as an interpreter in a refugee camp and cooperated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Austria worked for RFE/RL in Munich since 1983, was responsible for the press monitoring, later for the program “Voices and Receptions” returned to Prague in 1994, continued to work for RFE/RL till the shutdown of the Czech broadcasting of RFE/RL in 2002 elected president of the Writer’s community in 2002 lives in Prague and writes books

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Plzeň, Bory

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The Bory prison is located on the southern outskirts of the city of Pilsen, near the Litice dam. The prison complex in Plzeň-Bory consists of a central building with radially protruding single wings. The resulting shape of the building is that of a regular octagon. In the 1950s, the Bory prison was renowned as one of the harshest prisons with primitive sanitation and living conditions. Up to five prisoners would be routinely placed in solitary confinement. A number of outstanding personalities were imprisoned here, such as Army General Heliodor Píka, who was executed in Bory on June 21, 1949. The so-called "Bory uprising", in which the former member of the Royal Air Force Josef Bryks participated, took place here. The participation in the uprising added an extra 20 years to his 10 years term that he had gotten in a trumped-up process in 1949. The rebellion was probably artificially staged. In later years, former Czech President Václav Havel was imprisoned here. The prison serves its purpose until today.