Commentary
Besides those executed in large trials, thousands of people were also sentenced in less watched trials in the first half of the 1950s. The communist government passed laws imposing long sentences and criminalising various types of conduct. Many political prisoners were released only during the presidential amnesty in 1960. In 1949, Ivan Kieslinger was sentenced to 16 years in prison because he promised to help the anti-communist uprising, which had already come out during the preparatory phases of the trial.
In this document, we try to convey the experience of his family through a letter in which his mother attempts to ask permission to send a food package to her son. The confrontation of the individual and the state in this case shows how political prisoners were treated in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. The conditions in prisons and labour camps were very harsh, characterised by hard labour, physical punishment, and lack of food and sleep. Many prisoners died in prison or were seriously ill when released. We do not focus on the personal story of the prisoner, for whom a lack of fruit was probably not the worst experience, but instead try to reconstruct the perspective of Ivan’s mother and the families of convicts in general and their relationship to the communist regime.
