My eye fell out of my socket

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After the events in February 1948, Boy Scout Leopold Färber, with the nickname Hurvínek, took part in various activities aimed at undermining the authority of the Communist regime. In May 1950 he was arrested and then escorted to the prison in Pilsen. “When you first arrived to Bory, you had to undress completely. We were undressing on one side and the prison clothes were prepared on the other side. We got short pants, the others had long pants, coats... My accomplice, Josef Marek, was standing next to me and said: ‘We ended up in a real shithole, right?!’ We had no idea the warden had been watching us. Then they took us to our cells, solitary cells. And then it all started. The warden came up to me and said: ‘So, have you been beaten here?’ And I said: ‘No, what for?’ And he was just bam, bam, bam, beating me.” The next day, this renowned sadist, officer Václav Brabec, was on duty again. He had asked Leopold Färber once again: “’Have you been beaten here?’ – ‘Well, you beat me, yesterday!’ – ‘Whaaat?!’ He beat me up. After some time he was on duty again, he came into the cell, but I had known better and stayed quiet. He was beating me again, but by accident he touched my glass eye which fell out of my socket and started to roll down the cell.” Leopold Färber got his glass eye after he lost his own eye in an accident. “It was a shock for officer Brabec. He looked at me with dismay, walked out of my cell and he never again dared to touch me.”

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Leopold Färber

Leopold Färber was born in Stará Halič in Slovakia on October 31, 1928. He grew up in Boskovice. His father was a Jew, his mother was a devout Catholic. Their mixed marriage saved them from their deportation to the annihilation camp. As a boy, Leopold, nicknamed Hurvínek, acted as a messenger between the anti-Nazi resistance groups. After 1948 he decided to carry on with the resistance activities. He founded a group with his two brothers Josef and František Marek, who i.a. wanted to damage the Police School with their secretly acquired explosives. However, the explosives blew up by an unlucky coincidence in the Färbers' flat and Leopold lost one of his eyes. The State Security arrested him together with Josef Marek in May 1950. It was shortly after the children from his Scouts' group had distributed leaflets saying 'Death to Communism!' around the neighborhood. Leopold Färber didn't know about that, he only inspired the children by his narrations about the war. The Court sentenced him to sixteen years in jail; he served eight years of his sentence. After that he worked at road constructions for many years, he was finally allowed to arrange shop-windows.

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Plzeň, Bory

Available in: English | Česky

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.