Emil Švec

Emil Švec (born September 24, 1925 in Piešťany , Czechoslovakia ; † March 2010 ) was a Slovak refugee who fled to Austria in an airplane over the Iron Curtain in 1959 . In 1962, he was kidnapped by the ŠtB secret service on Austrian territory and taken back to Czechoslovakia, where he was imprisoned until 1977.

Life

He was born in Piešťany in 1925, where he also spent his childhood. As a young man he did his military service in the Army of the Slovak Republic , where he received pilot training. After the Second World War he moved to Pressburg and began to study medicine there. However, he kept in contact with his hometown and took part in local meetings of an anti-communist resistance group called the “White Legion” ( Biela légia ). This clerical group was in contact with Slovak emigrants in occupied Austria who, with the help of the Americans, ran a Slovak-language radio station with the same name from there. It was led on site by the Catholic priest Kamil Vančo from Sokolovce, who brought him in contact with other members. Since the radio station also unmasked the names of agents of the StB, the communist authorities regarded any participation in the group as high treason and began to smash them in 1951. Emil Švec was arrested at the Medical Faculty in Bratislava and sentenced in 1952 to six years in prison. He was released from prison in 1957 but was not allowed to continue his studies and had difficulties finding a job because of his past. Therefore, when the opportunity arose, he made the decision to flee across the border to neighboring Austria, from where the Soviet troops had withdrawn as early as 1955. Two years later he found such an opportunity.

Escape over the Iron Curtain

An agricultural K-65 Čáp fighting insects near Bratislava

On August 2, 1959, he succeeded in stealing an agricultural propeller plane, a Czech K-65 Čáp (replica of the Fieseler Storch ), and although he had never flown this type, he was able to control the machine successfully and flew 100 km over the Iron curtain as far as Austria. He landed in a field near Wilfersorf near Mistelbach. He was later to find out that Czechoslovak interceptors had already followed him. Švec left the plane and set off on foot. He immediately reported to Austrian gendarmes who initially refused to believe his story. But when his statements turned out to be true, he was recognized as a refugee in Austria. He then settled in Vienna , where he was able to continue his medical studies.

Two weeks after his successful escape, a former acquaintance from the ČSSR visited him in his hotel in Vienna, who had apparently been officially allowed to travel abroad. He walked through the city with him for a day and the friend took photos of the two in front of Vienna's sights. It later emerged that this acquaintance had been recruited as a spy by the Czechoslovak secret service.

Švec considered emigrating to the USA, for which he had already received the necessary papers, but then stayed in Vienna. In addition to his studies, he also worked as a journalist, was committed to a free Czechoslovakia and kept close contacts with Slovak emigrants in Austria. Some sources also claim that he also had contact with Western intelligence services. As a result, he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years imprisonment for high treason by a court in the ČSSR. He only found out about this in 1961 when an émigré newspaper reported about it in the West.

Kidnapping from Austria

In October 1962 he received the information that a Slovak dissident could smuggle explosive documents out of the ČSSR and deposit them in a field just across the border. Švec agreed to pick up these documents and drove with a friend by car from Vienna to Kittsee , near the border. There he went alone on foot until he in a cornfield the appointed district Stone discovered where actually was a package. He took it unopened and made his way back out of the field. Suddenly he noticed uniformed Czechoslovak border guards who immediately opened fire on him with pistols and automatic firearms . He threw himself to the ground and was thus unharmed. He was then overwhelmed and gagged. He recognized one of the men as one of his former prison guards, which made it clear that the whole operation had been a trap of the ŠtB. The agents dragged him across the border into the ČSSR and as soon as they left Austrian territory, he was handcuffed and officially arrested. He was then sent to prison to serve his outstanding 15-year sentence. The official authorities of the ČSSR announced in a publication that Švec had been arrested while illegally crossing the border on the Czechoslovak side and described him as a NATO agent.

He spent the next few years in various prisons, even during the Prague Spring he was not given amnesty like other political prisoners. It was not until 1969 that he was initially rehabilitated and released. However, only three years later that decision was reversed and he was arrested again and remained imprisoned until 1977. Thereafter, his sentence was considered served. After his release, he tried to complete his medical degree, but was again denied him. He worked as a nurse, but was constantly spied on by the State Security Service until the fall of the Wall.

Struggle for rehabilitation

After 1989 he tried to get an official rehabilitation and recognition as a victim of communism. However, this was repeatedly refused by the judiciary or bureaucratically dragged on. He then publicly accused the authorities of still being dominated by ex-communist clans. After Slovakia joined the EU on May 1, 2004, he turned to the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights in Strasbourg, Christos Giamoukopoulos, and the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights , Álvaro Gil-Robles . As a contemporary witness, he also gave interviews on the documentation of the crimes of communism, which have now been published by both Czech and Slovak official bodies and can be viewed on the Internet. The Slovak filmmaker Tibor Macák made a 45-minute documentary about the life story of Emil Švec in 2005, which was published in 2008 under the title “ V tieni casu ” and was shown at several film festivals, including by the Europa-Cinemas organization in Paris . The "Institute of National Remembrance" (UPN) in Bratislava is currently looking for sponsors to create a German-language version of the film.

Emil Švec died at the beginning of March 2010. Some details of his abduction remain in the dark to this day and none of the ŠtB agents involved have had to answer in court.

Web links

Ústav pamäti národa (Nation's Memory Institute): Contemporary witness videos with Emil Švec , with English translation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ústav pamäti národa: Emil Švec (1925)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Nation's Memory Institute, English)  
2. ↑ Petr Cibulka: Estébácká neviňátka ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Blog with details of the legal process, Slovak) 
3. ↑ Die Presse: Slovakia: The "Flying Refugee" is dead (March 16, 2010)
4. ↑ Ústav pamäti národa: Friend - a Secret Agent
5. ↑ Der Spiegel: Kommando Kranzschleife (Edition 34/1981)
6. ↑ Working group of non-university historical research institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany eV: The communist security apparatus in East Central Europe, 1944/1945 - 1989 ( Memento of October 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF, No. 079 of September 13, 2005; 103 kB)
7. ↑ Working group of non-university historical research institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany eV: The communist security apparatus in East Central Europe, 1944/1945 - 1989 ( Memento of October 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF, No. 079 of September 13, 2005; 103 kB)
8. ↑ Ústav pamäti národa: Emil Švec (1925)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Nation's Memory Institute, English)  
9. ^ Emil Švec - Slovak Union of Political Prisoners and Persons Dragged: Ref . CDH 48 / 04.28.4.04
10. ^ People's memory: Emil Švec (1925) - curriculum vitae
11. ↑ Europa Cinemas: V tieni casu (Slovak Republic)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ Die Presse: Slovakia: The "Flying Refugee" is dead (March 16, 2010)