Stories of Injustice Day 2024

When Vojtěch Rygal set out with a group of other refugees towards the Iron Curtain, he had no idea that he would become the first Catholic priest on the long list of victims of the emerging totalitarian regime.

Rygal was from Hulín in central Moravia. He studied at the archbishop's gymnasium in Kroměříž and later decided to pursue theology. In his free time, he was involved in scouting and was also a member of the Catholic sports-cultural organization Orel, which began causing him problems after February 1948. It soon became clear that his only option was emigration. Along with other people threatened by the emerging persecution, he began planning his escape. They decided to cross the border near Aš with the help of smugglers.

On March 23, Vojtěch Rygal set off from Holešov. He did not confide his plans to anyone close to him. He had arranged to meet the other refugees in Aš three days later, from where they would head to the border together. It might have been a trap; in any case, the moon was shining and the night was bright. As the group of thirteen refugees crossed the railway tracks, they were discovered by a patrol, and after the shooting, one lay dying on the spot - Father Rygal.

Only two of the refugees made it to the western zone of Germany; the others were captured and ended up in prison in Cheb.

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After the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, he decided to fight against Hitler as a volunteer. He fought on the battlefields of World War II, participated in the battles at Dunkirk towards the end of the war, and was decorated several times for his bravery. However, Jan Anděl did not die on the war front; a deadly bullet struck him near his home.

Anděl was originally Slovak. After the war, he settled with his family in Františkovy Lázně, where he was given management of a hotel. After the coup in 1948, Jan Anděl, as a soldier from the Western front, began to have problems. The Communist regime did not trust people who were familiar with the West and had contacts there.

There were many like him, and most saw no other option than to escape across the Iron Curtain. Jan Anděl, who lived near the border and knew the terrain well, helped them and guided entire families across.

His fateful journey to the border occurred on April 11, when he was leading a group of refugees. By then, patrols were stationed along the border, and when one of the patrol members tried to apprehend Anděl, a struggle ensued. Another patrol member, in the confusion, fired a burst from his submachine gun at the two struggling men. Anděl was killed on the spot, and his own colleague was seriously injured. After the fall of the regime, Anděl's death was investigated but without result; the case was adjourned.

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He didn't stand a chance. Leo Bačík died after two border guards fired thirty-nine rounds at him from close range with submachine guns. Four of the bullets hit him, one of which entered the spinal cord, causing instant death.

Leo Bačík lived with his family in Mikulov, a town close to the border, from where the neighboring country is even visible from the terrace of the local castle. The locals had to have at least suspected that the area was closely guarded. Nevertheless, Bačík apparently set off towards the border unprepared and on his own.

Late in the evening of April 10, he cautiously walked along the edge of the road that once connected Mikulov with the nearby Austrian village of Kleinschweinbarth. At that time, however, it led only to a strictly guarded fence. Border guards were patrolling in front of it.

They saw the approaching man against the horizon and hid beside the road. He saw them too and quickly reacted. He ran off the road and tried to escape. But by then, the border guards had already started shooting. One of the guards fired twenty-six rounds in three bursts, the other fired thirteen.

The summoned doctor from Mikulov, who identified Bačík, confirmed his death. He stated that family disputes were behind his attempt to escape. The investigation found no misconduct during the intervention, and the deceased was not even sent for an autopsy. On April 12, 1950, Leo Bačík was buried, and the case was closed.

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It was a well-prepared trap. Ludvík Duroň from Ždánice, along with two other young men from South Moravia, decided to attempt to cross the Iron Curtain. Since they were unfamiliar with the border area, they relied on the help of a guide. However, the guide led them directly into the hands of the border guards.

Immediately after the war in 1945, Ludvík joined the SNB (National Security Corps) and became a communist. However, in 1950, he left the Security Corps and apparently was already planning to emigrate to be with his wife, who had fled to Austria.

Duroň, along with his two friends Otakar Králíček and Zdeněk Šťastný, sought help from Milan Šmíd. Although he did not have a good reputation, there was no one else available. They took a taxi to Lednice and headed towards Sedlec, from where Šmíd led them to the Austrian border. The border was just beyond a railway embankment they had to cross. However, the guide left them at this point, apologizing and disappearing somewhere.

The young men climbed to the other side, where the hidden border guards were already waiting for them. The guards had been given false information by Šmíd that armed resistance fighters would be crossing, and they started firing at them with submachine guns. They even used two grenades.

Ludvík Duroň and Otakar Králíček were killed on the spot. Zdeněk Šťastný survived but was severely injured and taken to the hospital, where he died on May 25, 1951. It is likely that he did not receive proper care and might have been subjected to torture during the transport to the hospital. The brutal intervention was investigated several times, even before 1989, but no one was ever punished for it.

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He risked a lot and lost everything. Rudolf Vaculík, the chief engineer at the  Czechoslovak Army’s Coke Plant Karviná, decided to escape after the Ostrava StB (State Security) set a trap to force him into cooperation. At that time, he was 32 years old, leaving behind his family and a good job. As a social democrat, he did not want to betray his former colleagues even after his party was forcibly merged with the Communist Party following the coup.

The StB was aware of his strong determination, so they set a trap for him. They sent a fake resistance fighter with a proposal to form an illegal group. Vaculík realized the trap too late. He then hastily tried to organize an escape across the Iron Curtain into Austria. He found another person determined to escape and a guide named Karel. However, he did not know that Karel was a traitor acting under StB's instructions.

Before midnight on November 21, 1951, they met the guide in Břeclav, who led both men to Poštorná, into a prepared ambush by the border guards. After the shooting and a grenade explosion, Vaculík was left dead on the ground. The other man ended up in prison.

The case was kept secret, and it is unclear what happened to the body of the deceased. During her testimony on April 24, 1952, Vaculík's wife stated that her husband had escaped to the West. She had no idea that he was dead.

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Jiří Vorlíček was one of the many refugees killed by electric current at the Czechoslovak Iron Curtain. He came from Prague and worked as a technician at the Astronomical Institute at the Ondřejov Observatory. He decided to emigrate after returning from basic military service. It is unclear why he chose the section of the West German border near Všeruby for his plan.

At that location, the Iron Curtain was equipped with a deadly wire fence charged with up to 6000 volts of electricity. It is likely that Vorlíček had no idea about this danger. After being electrocuted, his body remained trapped in the wires. It was found there by a border guard patrol exactly at 1:45 AM on May 31, 1954.

To restore the electric current in the barriers, the body had to be removed. Everything was carried out secretly.

According to a special order from the Minister of National Security, Karel Bacílek, dated November 18, 1952, he was buried in an unmarked grave. His relatives did not know what had happened to him until the fall of the regime. Even though they suspect that Jiří Vorlíček is buried in the cemetery in Maxov near Všeruby, they do not know the exact location of his grave to this day

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The deadly shot hit him after he had crossed the border. Richard Schlenz from East German Leipzig, along with three friends, attempted to cross into Austria near Devín in Bratislava. All four climbed over a wire barrier from the roof of a car, reached the Morava River, and swam to the border, which is marked by the middle of the river.

It was a well-chosen spot, and Schlenz’s friends successfully reached the Austrian bank. However, Schlenz himself was struck by a bullet fired by one of the two border guards. Although the refugees were already beyond the border at that point, the border guards continued shooting, even swimming across to Austrian territory with bayonets in their teeth.

Their superiors ordered them to return, but it was too late. Schlenz was severely wounded and died in the river, while frightened Austrian fishermen on the bank ran for cover as bullets landed around them.

The incident caused outrage in the neighboring country, and the Austrian Foreign Ministry lodged a formal protest.

After the fall of the regime, Czech citizen Josef Mlčoušek, one of the two involved border guards, stood trial. The other guard did not live to see the trial. Mlčoušek was ultimately convicted only of exceeding his authority during the incident.

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It was a daring flight that could have succeeded. Thirty-six-year-old Polish man Dionizy Bielański, a father of two daughters and a professional pilot, decided to escape by plane through neighboring Czechoslovakia to Austria.

He had bad experiences with the Polish communist regime. Living in Opole, he worked as a flight instructor at an aeroclub. However, the Polish security service began to take an interest in him and repeatedly caused him problems, making it difficult for him to find suitable employment. Therefore, on July 16, 1975, he boarded an Antonov An-2 crop-dusting plane and headed for the border.

He planned to fly low to avoid being detected by radar. However, an employee at the Svazarm airport near Žilina noticed him. And the pursuit began. First, a helicopter took off, followed by fighter jets. Since the pilot did not respond, the air defense command decided to contact the Polish side, which gave permission to shoot him down.

The biplane stood no chance; it was shot down at 3:57 PM near the village of Kúty. The plane crashed and the pilot did not survive. The crash site is only eight kilometers from the Austrian border, the distance that separated the pilot from freedom.

On the Polish side, permission to shoot down the plane was given by the former Minister of Defense and later President Wojciech Jaruzelski. The Czechoslovak authorities attempted to falsify documentation. Investigators in both countries looked into the case after the fall of the regime, but with no result.

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In the cadastre of the village of Wielands near České Velenice, half a kilometer from the Czech border, Austrians discovered an lifeless body on November 5, 1984. It was František Faktor, who had attempted to escape from Czechoslovakia on October 30.

At the time, the thirty-three-year-old man lived in Vyšné near České Velenice and worked for Czechoslovak State Railways. The regime later propagandistically exploited his past punishment for illegal arming. For his escape attempt, he chose a location near his home that he knew well. In an area known as Fischer's Cottage, he managed to breach a wire barrier, but triggered a signal that alerted border guards. They pursued him even across the border and seriously injured him with gunfire from submachine guns. Immediate medical assistance might have saved his life, if only someone had known about him...

The border guards, however, left the refugee to his fate on Austrian territory, where they even fired shots. This constituted a serious breach of the sovereignty of the neighboring state. Czechoslovak authorities attempted to cover up the incident, but were unsuccessful. On the contrary, the case sparked outrage in Austria, whose authorities meticulously investigated it. Sixteen bullet casings were found on Austrian soil. The tragic death of the refugee thus affected relations between both countries.

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At home, he didn't say anything about his escape. Perhaps he didn't want to worry his mother, as his father was no longer alive. Hartmut Tautz from East German Magdeburg was eighteen years old at the time and under the pretext of a school trip, he traveled to the Iron Curtain in Bratislava, arriving on August 1, 1986. Like many East Germans, he believed that the border in Czechoslovakia would be less guarded.

He found accommodation and cautiously explored escape possibilities for a week. Near Petržalka in Bratislava, the border zone was narrow and the terrain could be surveyed from a road overpass. Hartmut prepared himself. However, he had no idea that death awaited him in the narrow border corridor.

In the jargon of the border guards, they were called "independent attacking dogs." He stood no chance against them. The dogs caught up with him just twenty meters from the border. Unable to defend himself against their attack, he lay there severely injured when two border guards arrived. Instead of immediately providing assistance, the border guards searched nearby to see if there were any other refugees.

Only after the arrival of their superior did they transport the boy to a military hospital, where he passed away half an hour later. No one was ever punished for the cruel death of the young man.

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