How I slept in there, I don’t know

After his arrest, Zdeněk Kovařík was taken to the prison in Hradec Králové. “I spent six months in a solitary cell. The room was two by three metres. At 5.30 a.m. the alarm went off, I had to quickly wash myself and then walk all day. When I had first arrived there, there was a nice clean red xylolith floor, when I was leaving after six months, the floor by the door and window was worn out down to concrete in the shape of a half a metre circle, from the turns I was making. I walked hundreds of kilometres in there. I wasn't allowed to sit or lie down – just walk, walk, walk.” Kovařík’s friend from the Boy Scouts, Zbyněk Škaloud, was placed in the neighbouring cell. Apparently, the interrogators hoped to get further information for the trial that way. The lads communicated in Morse code. The wardens caught them in the act. “They put me in a dark cell. I don't know for how long I'd been in there. There was no difference there between daytime and night-time, for about ten to twelve days. It was dark in there for twenty four hours. The only light I could see was when they opened the small window in the door or when they took me for an interrogation. No blanket, no sleep, nothing. So that no-one could lean against the wall it was coated in rough plaster. When you leant against the wall and your hand slipped by accident, you would rub your skin off and start bleeding. How I slept in there, I don't know. I know I had woken up on the floor several times.” During the arrest also interrogations were carried out. Gradually, some rooms were singled out for this purpose in the Hradec Králové prison. They usually took place at night. “Suddenly, at twenty three hundred hours keys rattled and I went for an interrogation. If somebody breaks your nose, punches out your teeth, it’s not worth describing. The first interrogation was supposed to shock me. They made me stand in a corner, there I had to squat, stretch my arms forward, and I could see puddles of blood. Their aim was psychological pressure. My cell was about four cells apart from the interrogation room, so I could hear when, at night, the State Security guys were taking someone there for an interrogation. Some of them were treated inhumanly, they beat them and tormented them. When you hear moaning at three a.m., it is psychologically demanding.”