And now put the shoes on!

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When Jan Haluza refused membership in the Party, he was arrested after some time. At the end of September 1948 he was already in prison in Uherské Hradiště. The methods of local interrogators were unscrupulous. When beating was not working, the interrogatees were tortured with electricity. Haluza recalls: “Because of my injured soles, the interrogators let me rest for a few days because I couldn’t walk. Then they came for me and another interrogation started – but it wasn’t just beating. Jan Haluza refused to confess to anything, which made the interrogators angry. They put metal strips in his shoes and charged them with electricity. When the electricity started to have an effect, Haluza took his shoes off so that the electric contact was interrupted --“They tried it twice, then started to laugh and said: ‘We have a cure for you, don’t you worry.’ So they left me, one of them went to the neighboring room and brought lace-up boots which already had the metal strips securely fastened. ‘And now put the shoes on!’ So I put the shoes on. Naturally, the boots were sturdy, so I couldn’t take them off. The interrogation started all over again and it was horrible. When I was sitting down my heart felt tight, my brain was affected, my legs were shaking.” After a while, they told him to lie down, but they soon continued with the torturing. “In the end, what they did was that they left me standing in the boots and turned the electricity on. This caused my legs to go weak and I collapsed immediately.”

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Jan Haluza

Jan Haluza was born on 12th July 1914 in Šternov, today's Újezd u Brna. From his early youth, he did sports and soon became an outstanding athlete. He brought medals from Catholic Olympics in Vienna and Ljubljana and he won many titles and achieved many records. He was a member of the Baťa Athletic club in Zlín, where he met Emil Zátopek, for whom he became the first and only trainer. After the War he joined the political scene. He became a member of the Czechoslovak People's Party and the chairman of the regional commission of the People's Party youth organization in the Zlín area. In the regional commission he met with Jan Šrámek, František Hála and Adolf Procházka. After the February 1948, he was offered membership by the Communist Party, which he refused. He was arrested, accused of plotting against the government and sentenced to six years in prison. Then he was accused of being a member of the group connected with Milada Horáková and he went through electricity torture in Uherské Hradiště. The interrogation in Uherské Hradiště finally did not bring any new information. Apart from several prisons, he passed through camps Vykmanov, Eliáš, Mariánská. In the Bratrství camp, he was accused of espionage and was threatened danger by execution. During the interrogation he fell ill with typhus and after 22 days of hallucinations he lost his memory. After the release in 1954, he worked in inferior positions until he could return to his law practice. After the Revolution, he was honored with many decorations including the golden medal for an honest run in the race of life.

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Uherské Hradiště, prison

Available in: English | Česky

During the 1950s, the prison in Uherské Hradiště became the place of suffering for hundreds of people who were either politically opposed to, or simply inconvenient to the newly established communist regime. Arrestees were brought to the prison, which stood adjoining the Regional Court; there they were harassed and interrogated. The prison section of the building has been deserted for several decades.