The hunger strike

Milo Komínek was a prisoners in Leopoldov. “I spent eleven years in Leopoldov, and nine years out of that was in a solitary cell. A solitary cell is meant for one prisoner only. It is possible for a person to be alone there, or in twos, threes or fives. But there can be eighteen, twenty or even forty people in a common cell,” he remembered. In Leopoldov, Mr. Komínek took part in the “hunger strike” in 1957, which was apparently provoked by the prison management, in order to take measures against certain political prisoners. “Such events were always organized by the management. They started the whole thing off with the help of traitorous prisoners, who were working for the management,” he recalled. The main reason for the strike, which at the same time took place, also in other prisons apart from Leopoldov, was a lack of food: “We refused to work. The reaction of the management was tough; the strike was eliminated very violently. The boys, one after the other, were beaten, it was really ugly. We found out two weeks later, when some of the prisoners were tried for the strike, that it took place across the country. The strike had a different name in different prisons; in one of the prisons it was called Nudeltag. The development was the same for each prison: the situation was tense, there were some hot-headed prisoners and some others joined them, because they didn’t realize it was a sham. The political prisoners kept together without realising that the whole strike was just a sham.”