A rebel all his life
Download image
Václav Hrůza was born on 5 February, 1931 in Líšnice near Milevsko, where his family owned the largest farm. He studied an academy of commerce in Prague specialised in international relations and foreign trade. In 1950 he graduated and found a job in a foreign trade company Hop Malt (translates as: hobs and malt), where he was successful and even got an offer to work abroad. But when he refused to join the communist party, instead of promotion he was moved to a factory Avia Vysočany in the framework of the „Action 77” („voluntary” leave of 77 000 officers into production). At the time the factory produced Russian airplanes MiG, and as a witness had an excellent command of Russian and English, he translated technical documentation for airplanes and interpreted to Russian experts. On 24 May, 1952 Václav Hrůza was arrested by the state security and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for high treason and espionage. He was in lagers Nikolaj and Rovnost in Jáchymov region. In 1957 after an unsuccessful attempt for escape he got a new trial. The court revisited the original judgment and Václav Hrůza was sentenced to three years in prison. As he already served over five years, he was immediately released from prison. After the basic military service he started as a land betterment worker. Later he worked as a clerk in the department of work and wages in spa Karlova Studánka and a leader of export department in a press factory of new materials in Vrbno pod Pradědem. Since 1979 he was employed by the state company Intergeo Praha, and in 1982-1989 was sent to Mongolia in a position of a geological area leader. After the Velvet revolution the witness worker as an embassy commercial counsellor in Mongolia.
