Augmented Prison Sentence
In August 1949, priest Josef Zlámal was arrested for reading from the Shepherd’s Letters and taken to remand prison in Liberec. In December of the same year, Mr. Zlámal appeared in front of a five-member court of the county court in Liberec that was chaired by a woman. The originally “milder” sentence of six years was augmented during the trial to ten years, because of an incident that occurred during the hearing, when Josef Zlámal insinuated Jewish origin of the judge. “In Moravia, there is a saying that her nose is like a handle from the madhouse door (meaning that it is big – transl. note). I couldn’t be mistaken. She asked me, why had I asked people during christenings whether they were Catholics or communists. There was a witness who was supposed to testify against me, but he stood up for me and corrected her: ‘That’s not right. He asked whether they were Catholics or non-Catholics.’ – ‘And why did you ask that?’ the judge asked. ‘Because birth registers are half state and half church documents. When a person is a Catholic, I write him down as a godfather, when the person is a non-Catholic, I write him down as a witness,” I explained. And she said: ‘I went to many christenings as a godmother and no one had ever asked me.’ – ‘Well, they didn’t have to ask you, because it’s fairly obvious.’ Then the prosecutor stood up and suggested four more years for offence of the race.”
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