Pardubice

former Gestapo building · Jahnova 697, 530 02 Pardubice-Pardubice I, Czech Republic

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The Wrong Answer

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In May 1942, Karel Veselý was arrested for alleged distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets and interrogated at the Gestapo office in Pardubice. He recalls that at the beginning, the interrogating Gestapo man was polite to him. But once Mr. Veselý refused to confess, the interrogating methods changed dramatically: “When he got tired of it, he called: ‘Hans, komm hier!’ The door opened and a man holding a rope and a cane entered. He took me, bended me over the chair and used the rope to tie my arms to my legs. Then, he started to beat me with the cane and to question me. He asked something and I answered: ‘I do not know that.’ Bang! I could not sit down for a week after that. And it took a long time before the wounds on my back healed. They interrogated me twice or three times, I think.” Although Karel Veselý never confessed to distributing leaflets, he spent the following years in various Nazi prisons.

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Karel Veselý

Karel Veselý was born in 1922 in Heřmanův Městec. During the war, he worked in the Flugzeugwerke Chotzen, (Choceň), aircraft factory that belonged to Ing. Jaroslav Mráz. In Choceň, he joined a local resistance group and together with his friend Ludvík Kodýtko they distributed leaflets throughout the city. In April 1942, he was arrested and subsequently subjected to a number of very brutal interrogations by the Gestapo in Pardubice. After the interrogations, he was imprisoned in the Little Fortress of the Terezín ghetto and later in prisons in Bautzen, (Budyšín), Dresden, and Berlin. He was sentenced to five years and was jailed in prisons in Straubing and Ebrach. In April 1945, he was sent on a so-called "death march" to the Dachau concentration camp. Most of the prisoners who took part in this march perished. Of the four thousand that went on the march, only 1,200 survived. The others were shot, beaten to death or died of starvation or complete exhaustion. After the war, he at first lived at home in Pardubice and later in Nové Sedlo. He eventually settled in Šumperk, where he still lives today.

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Pardubice

Available in: English | Česky

The building, which today is the seat of the Regional Authority of the Pardubice region, used to be the seat of the Gestapo in Pardubice during World War II. The head of the Pardubice Gestapo became government councilor Dr. Canaris, (until then the head of the Gestapo office in Liegnitz), and he remained in charge of it until June 1939. He was replaced by Gerhard Clages who remained in office until 1943. In June 1942, the Gestapo members were charged with the task of detaining all collaborators of the Silver A airborne group.

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The Wrong Answer

Karel Veselý