They did not let themselves be broken

This audiobook is an authentic testimony to the hope, courage and indomitability of its actors. It documents the fates of 21 political prisoners from the 1950s and people persecuted by the communist regime who survived the most difficult period of that era - the execution of loved ones, years of imprisonment and harassment. They endured forty long years of totalitarianism, but most importantly - they did not let themselves be broken. Although their lives were turned upside down, they did not give up. Many of them have contributed to today's freedom and their legacy seems to be extremely important even today. The author mapped their stories for fifteen years. With the Confederation of Political Prisoners, she returned after a long time to places connected with their past - behind the bars of prisons in the former Czechoslovakia or to places where communist labour camps once stood. She had and still has personal friendships with many of the protagonists. The stories tell not only of the hardships these people once had to overcome, but also of how they managed to cope and get on with their lives. The author inserts into the nation's memory a unique collection of stories from the recent past that are written with life, true to the point of being painful. With a special feeling for the suffering of others, years after the fall of the communist regime, when the silenced and repressed victims are falling into oblivion, when the last direct participants in the terror are dying out. Violence and injustice, when the protagonists of the regime covered their tracks, as if she were gibbering, picked up the logs of the victims, heroism and memories of the people, who have lived before us and honestly paid a heavy toll for their dream of a just world. Anton Srholec