They want to destroy you here

As an “agent-walker,” Josef Čoček guided people across the borders into West Germany. On one such crossing in 1954, he was arrested. He was to serve his life sentence in the Mírov in prison. He remembers the roll calls there: “There was one Matoušek there during roll call, Bimbo they called him. He was the deputy commander of Mírov Prison. Although I hadn't done a thing, I got two weeks in the hole. It was December though, and it was freezing right proper. There was no window in the cooler, just six meters of wall all around me. I had one blanket. I got pneumonia within a week. They took me to the infirmary, where they only had aspirin and carbon pills. Well, they put me more-or-less together again, and then I went right back into the cooler to serve the rest of my two weeks. Two months later I was in the hole again. I got pneumonia again, and the head doctor, one Dr. Milotínský from State Security --these police doctors were all in State Security-- he said: ‘Mr Čoček, look, they want to destroy you here. I can't help you except by recommending they transfer you to a different prison.’ But he was humane enough that he didn't send me back to the block, but he kept me among the elderly and the ill. I remained there until my escort came to take my to Leopoldov.”