Ostrava, StB Regional Directorate
30. dubna 1682/24, 702 00 Ostrava-Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz, Czech Republic
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Class enemy

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On 29 December 1949, Zdeněk Růžička was arrested and transported to the residence of the State Security Regional Administration in Ostrava for interrogation. Though he committed no offence, the communist investigators Krhut and Walder intended to involve him in a fabricated political trial with members of a subversive group. "They made me sit on a chair and began circling around me. So tell us about your subversive activities. I said: 'I'm not aware of any subversive activity. I would like you to ask me questions, and I will answer them truthfully.' All of a sudden I got hit on my head and ear from the back so hard that I fell down from the chair. Mr Krhut declared that from then on he would treat me as a class enemy. That way I learnt how quickly one can turn from an ordinary man into an enemy. They were shooting questions at me till the evening. Then they photographed me and took my fingerprints. My fingers were twice as big after all the beating with a cowhide whip. As they were beating me, my fingertips were all cracked and bleeding. I was doing boxing at the time, so I was used to receiving some beating. My head was flying from one side to another, but it had no effect on me. They smashed my teeth, my fillings fell out. And when they realized it didn't work, they began beating me with the cowhide whip. Then I was transported to prison,'" recounts Zdeněk Růžička, who experienced several interrogations made by those pervert state security officers.

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Zdeněk Růžička

Zdeněk Růžička

Zdeněk Růžička was born in 1925 in Moravská Ostrava. While living in this city he experienced the war and the liberation, but what has remained most deeply etched in his memory was the post-war treatment of Germans. He was witness to riots and mass lynching. Shortly after the arrest of his brother, a former prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp, Zdeněk was arrested in 1949 for contacts with the resistance group of Jan Buchal. He went through a series of brutal interrogations by the Secret Police in Ostrava. He was only aware of the group's existence, but in spite of this he was still sentenced to 14 years of heavy jail in what was the largest politically-motivated court trial in the Ostrava region. His brother Miroslav was sentenced to sixteen years of imprisonment. His brother died four years after his release, leaving behind his wife and two children. Zdeněk Růžička was released in the presidential amnesty in 1960 after having spent ten and a half years in labour camps in the uranium mines in Jáchymov and in the Valdice prison. He continues to live in Ostrava-Přívoz and still strives to share his experience with the communist regime during lectures for students.

Ostrava, StB Regional Directorate

Available in: English | Česky

The building, which currently serves as the seat of the Ostrava Police Directorate and the Regional Police Directorate of the Moravian-Silesian region, was in the period of the Communist dictatorship the seat of the StB Regional Directorate. During the years 1948-1989, this place would often be packed with hundreds of political prisoners who were brutally interrogated by using physical and psychological violence. On August 21, 1968, a crowd consisting of hundreds of people attacked the StB Regional Directorate, enraged about the presence of the Soviet troops.

Ostrava, StB Regional Directorate

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Class enemy

Class enemy

Zdeněk Růžička
The worst three months in his life

The worst three months in his life

Lubomír Gižický
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