They stormed into my room and hit me with a rifle butt
The Švehla Hall of residence was one of those that the Gestapo raided on 17th November 1939. Stanislav Kaska was among the ones arrested. “Usually the Hlávka Hall of residence is mentioned in this context but a lot more students who had been arrested were from the Švehla dormitory.” The Gestapo stormed into the dormitory at around five a.m. Mr Kaska’s room was right next to the stairs, the students were just talking about the demonstrations that took place, Mr Kaska was telling his friend that surely they will all be arrested. As soon as he said that, he went to open the window and at that moment the door burst open. “SS-men stormed into the room, they hit me with a rifle butt. They kicked us out of the room and we went downstairs. There was no one on the stairs. I lived on the third floor, until this day I remember the door number 71. It was strange that no one was in the corridor, I was telling myself: ‘What the hell is going on?’ We got all the way downstairs to the cinema.” The Švehla Hall of residence was well equipped, the cinema Academia was on the ground floor. “We came downstairs and I could see that the director was standing there, his name was Horčička, with his whole family, their hands were above their heads. We were the first ones out of all the students to get there because our room was right next to the stairs, so they took us first.”
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Stanislav Kaska
JUDr. Stanislav Kaska was born on 4th October 1919 in Bavorovice. He comes from a farmer's family, his father owned 25 hectares of land. He had ten siblings out of which seven had lived to maturity. His brother Josef works as an economist and his brother Karel is an engineer (a specialist on heating systems and factory chimneys). He passed his graduation exam in 1938 and he was enrolled at the Faculty of Law at Charles University. He had lived at Švehla dormitory (Slavíkova street) until he was arrested on 17th November 1939. As a student, he participated in subversive activities; he used to sing Czech folk songs or the Czechoslovak anthem in public with his fellow students and participated in protests. He was one of the first students from the Švehla dormitory to be arrested. Same as other students, he was first taken to prison at Ruzyň and then transported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He worked at first in the spercommando (heavy forestry labor) then in the strafcommando (which built dykes and carried heavy rocks), he also worked at the construction of the Klinkerwerk camp, in the brickworks, then he managed to bribe the foreman and was transferred to the ammunition magazine. He was kept in block number 51 and later in block number 48. In January 1932 (probably on 27. 1.), he was released and returned back home. After the return, thanks to the influence of his father, he found a job in the agricultural cooperative in Klatovy, in the Běšiny division. After the war he returned to the Law faculty and graduated in 1946. He worked as a legal prosecutor.
