Whipping boy

Ivan Kieslinger spent the end of 1949 on the infirmary of the Jáchymov forced-labor camp "Rovnost," (Equality). December the 18th was J. Stalin's birthday and Ivan Kieslinger recalls that the wardens decided to remind the inmates of this important anniversary: "They conducted an extensive search of our barracks. We had to get out on the hallways and line up. After that I was taken to the police station. I didn't know on what account. Later they told me that in my bed, they had found active material. For this, I could have gone to court again and might have been given the rope. The previous interrogations were nothing compared to the one that followed. All the wardens on duty must have beaten me for about eight or ten hours. They demonstrated, to each other, the proper way to perform a slap: 'look, your hand has to be a clenched fist and you only open it before impact. Try it!' And they would try it on me. And of course they beat me on the legs, too. My shoes were taken off and they beat me with a baton or something of the sort. By the end, I almost didn't feel it anymore. Finally they threw me into solitary. Solitary confinement was an unheated wooden shack made of planks. It was December in the Krušné hory Mountains, the planks were loose and there was a snowdrift in the room. They threw me into that shack all broken, I hardly felt anything. At times, I fainted. In this way I spent Christmas. I must have been there for many days but I'm not sure how long it was."