„Dopadlo to nakonec tak, že v době, kdy jsem byl v roce 1952 povolán na vojenskou službu, a bylo to k PTP (Pomocné technické prapory), což jsem předem nevěděl, tak všichni pomocníci, kteří nám do té doby chodili do Moravského Žižkova pomáhat, toho museli z nějakého důvodu nechat. Museli přejít do továren nebo jinam v Břeclavi. V den, kdy jsem odcházel na vojnu, zůstala maminka na našem hospodářství sama jen s přítelkyní Marií Pálenkovou, s níž se znala od obecné školy a která jí dělala pomocnici. V ten okamžik matce nezbylo nic jiného než hospodářství položit. Takzvaně dobrovolně vše odevzdala do správy zemědělského družstva za podmínky, že se vystěhuje. Když jsem dostal z vojny na dva nebo tři dny opušťák, přijel jsem do Moravského Žižkova maminku odstěhovat. Odvezli jsme ji s nějakými věcmi do domu ve Starém Městě u Uherského Hradiště, kde bydlela moje babička.“
„První prohlídka byla asi v pondělí další týden. Přijel jsem do Moravského Žižkova s jedním pánem, který dělal na našem hospodářství asistenta. Zjistili jsme, že jsou tam cizí lidé, přehrabují se v naší knihovně, listují každou knihu po stránkách a prohlížejí celý dům. Neřekli nám, co zjistili, jen že je to nařízená prohlídka. Bylo nám to divné. Mamince možná předložili nějaký papír. Bylo to strašné. Viděli jsme, že do domu chodí cizí lidé, přehrabují se tam a dělají si tam co chtějí, aniž by nám řekli, jaká máme práva. Byl to určitý teror úřední moci, která vás přepadne a začne s vašim majetkem zacházet jako se svým. Přitom jsme pořád nevěděli, co je s otcem.“
„Byli jsme zvyklí na to, že otec odjíždí na cesty, aniž bychom byli předem informováni, jestli cesta potrvá jen do večera, anebo třeba týden. Samozřejmě nás to vylekalo, když jsme nedostali žádné zprávy. Přitom v tom týdnu od 23. února jsme prožili 25. únor a ty další dny, kdy jsme najednou slyšeli, že prezident Beneš přijal demisi některých ministrů a ustanovil Gottwalda, aby sestavil vládu, a že do vlády se za lidovou stranu dostal páter Plojhar. Tuto dobu jsme prožívali ve velkém napětí, protože jsme nevěděli, co se stalo, kde otec je, proč od něj nemáme žádnou zprávu. Když se asi po dvou dnech z Prahy nevrátil, sestry volaly mamince a celá rodina začala usilovně pátrat, kam otec zmizel. Chodil jsem do školy a nikomu jsem nic neprozradil. Najednou jsme cítili, že je tu nějaké nebezpečí, ve kterém se ocitá nejen náš otec, ale i my jeho příbuzní, a že se může stát cokoliv. Bylo to drastické.“
“We experienced a great thing in Banská Bystrica on September 1, 1954. We were to be released and go home on that day because we have spent 24 months doing military service. There was a roll call and we waited to be released. Instead, they announced to us that we were being retained there for an extraordinary army exercise. We asked the commander for how long. ‘This is not stated in the orders, but it is quite obvious. Of course, you may raise a complaint, but the order says that you are to continue.’ We were boiling with rage and we thought that this was weird. Firstly, we have been already screened once, and we continued to do digging and constructing roads nevertheless, and we were to terminate our military service and they did not tell us why they had prolonged it for us. Fine, we shall ask the comrade minister then. We really did write a letter to the minister. I knew the workings of the communist bureaucracy: that it was necessary to find the person behind the idea, the person who had organized it and those who had written it and sent it. Therefore I said: ‘You will borrow a typewriter, you will get some papers, and you all will write one after another. You write ten words and then another person continues.’ They had to go and write one by one. The letter was composed by about fifteen people from our room. It was written in a polite way, and we turned to the minister and pointed out that we have become politically reliable and that the regular period of military duty was now over for us and we had already been through it all, but still we did not know for how long we would stay there. Obviously, it evolved into a scandal. The comrade minister did not even bother to reply. On the other hand, he sent the OBZ, the military interrogation police, there and they started interrogating us. But when they found out that each of us really wrote just a part of it, they realized that they were unable to blame it onto anyone and they ceased pursuing the case.”
“We finished in Banská Bystrica on November 29, 1954 and they told us that we could request to become civilians again. They gave us the money which we had earned. They had been giving us half of the money immediately in cash, and I had been sending this money to my mom, and the other half had been deposited as a blocked deposit. But the savings books were cleverly held by our commander, and when the currency reform was put into effect in 1953, they exchanged our savings not 1:5, but 1:50! My earnings for two and a quarter of years were thus 2 350 CZK. Of course, the economic situation was different back then, but I think that this was not much money, really. It is possible that somebody had made use of our earnings as we discovered later. When we worked we had to pay for our food, clothing, material for heating, light, and for being guarded by those communist soldiers who were watching us and getting paid for our working on top of that. No wonder that we received so little money after that time.”
“At that time, in autumn 1953, political screenings of people who held the classification E were being conducted all over the country. ‘E’ meant politically unreliable, and these people were assigned to the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP). A great many people have passed, but since the main factor which was considered in the political screenings was your class origin, you could not change that by having done military service. I was thus one of those who have not passed and together with others who were in the same lot we were reassigned from Moravia to the PTP battalion in Komárno and we were told that we would continue there. When I studied the documents later, I found out that this Komárno battalion was supplemented by all people from Bohemia and Moravia who had not passed the screenings, and this way the battalion continued to exist. Of course, it was in winter between 1953 and 1954, which was one of the harshest winters. When we worked on construction sites and they brought us mortar in the mortar cart, it would freeze in our ladles before we could transfer it to the wall. They probably decided prudently that we would not have done a lot of work on the construction sites anyway, and instead they sent us to coal mines in Ostrava for three years. I thus got to the miners’ city Ostrava for the first time as a soldier.”
Rostislav Sochorec was born October 10, 1931 in Staré Město u Uherského Hradiště. His father was a deputy to the National Assembly and he was arrested after the coup d’état in February 1948. At first he was interned and interrogated in Prague and later he was transported to the psychiatric sanatorium in Brno for his alleged depressive condition. He died in this sanatorium already in May 1948. Suicide by self-strangulation by a wet towel was given as his cause of death. The authorities did not allow autopsy to be performed and nobody signed the death certificate. The family continued to be persecuted after the death of their father. Rostislav and his sisters were prevented from studying at schools. Rostislav was drafted to do military service and due to his class origin he was assigned to the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP). After his return from the army he became employed in the Hydrometeorological Institute in Brno but he was forbidden from working in any managerial positions. After 1989 he became the director of the Hydrometeorological Institute in Ostrava. After his retirement Rostislav became politically active in Ostrava-Poruba, which is his current place of residence. At present he works in the Association of the Auxiliary Technical Battalions as an IT specialist. In the 1990s Rostislav Sochorec received out-of-court rehabilitation and he was decorated with the Order of T. G. Masaryk.
