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Nacistický a komunistický vězeň Ladislav Král [Nazi and Communist Prisoner Ladislav Král]

Martin Jindra
Pages 41-48
Citation JINDRA, Martin. Nacistický a komunistický vězeň Ladislav Král [Nazi and Communist Prisoner Ladislav Král]. Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia. Prague: National Museum, 2016, 70(3-4), 41-48. ISSN 2570-6845 (print), 2570-6853 (online). Also available from: https://www.nm.cz/en/periodicals/amnph/70-3-4/nacisticky-a-komunisticky-vezen-ladislav-kral-nazi-and-communist-prisoner-ladislav-kral
Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia | 2016/70/3-4

The present article describes the life story of Ladislav Král, a priest of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and a political prisoner of both the Nazi and communist regimes. In both cases, he was arrested in Beroun where he served as a parish priest. He was held the first time by the Gestapo in September 1943; after the communist coup d’état in February 1948, it was the State Security (StB) that came out to Beroun to seize him. After the first arrest during the Nazi occupation he was imprisoned in Kladno, after which he passed through to the Small Fortress in Theresienstadt concentration camp and ended up in the Dachau concentration camp from where he was released in July 1944. He was allowed to serve as a priest in Beroun again only after the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945. However, five years later, in May 1945, he was arrested once again on political grounds and sentenced to 14 years of prison. Despite his poor health condition he was paroled only on the 4th September 1957. Being a former convict, the State security kept on following him (he fell into the category of the “erstwhile people”, the category of a person of interest). Král had been consequently prohibited to serve as a priest and could only exercise manual occupations. He died at the age of 67 on the 30th July 1970 spending a considerable part of his life – on the grounds of his attitude and opinions – in prison or under the surveillance of the totalitarian regime’s repressive agencies.

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