Solitary fighter František Kriegel

When on 3rd December 1979 František Kriegel died, the totalitarian establishment prohibited a public funeral. His name had been forgotten for a long time though his memory was honoured as late as in 1987 by the Charta 77 in Stockholm, where the Prize of František Kriegel was founded. This prize is awarded annually on the day of František Kriegel’s birth and it is given to individuals or civic institutions for the exemplary bravery they showed in the fight for human rights, civic freedoms and political tolerance.

Who was this immensely brave and high-principled Czech politician? It may be sufficient to say that he was a man who was prepared to sacrifice not only his possessions but even his life for his beliefs. Why are we slowly forgetting his name and life? This is surely not fair. Maybe if he had lived somewhere else, movies would have been made about him. Maybe… Anyway, read what others wrote about František Kriegel and make your own opinion.

From Lvov to Prague

Even though František Kriegel was a citizen of Czechoslovakia in heart, he was born in Stanislawow that used to be part of Austria-Hungarian and today it is in Poland. He was a son of a small Jewish builder. František was almost eleven years old when his father died and the family was almost without any income. His mother received just miniscule financial support from their grand father so František Kriegel had to help rise money from the age of fourteen. He was a Jew and subject to discrimination, therefore he didn’t stand a chance to study medicine in Lvov. Because of that he moved to Prague where he studied at the Charles University’s Faculty of Medicine. Before he left he was given 500 crowns and six white shirts from his mother.

Prague surprised him because all institutions treated him like an equal citizen, nobody discriminated him and he soon fell in love with his new country. However life was hard. To make ends meet he labelled envelops, worked in a shoemaker’s workshop, on building sites and also worked as an extra in the National Theatre. He was also earning money by selling sausages at a football pitch but, according to the memories of his wife Riva, he paid more attention to the game than to sausages as he played football himself.

He encounterd poverty and social inequality and so became involved in the left wing youth movement, by 1931 he became a member of KSČ (the Czechoslovakian Communist Party). He believed that this Party was true and pure and that it will create conditions for the happiest life of ordinary people as it declared in its manifests and theories. As a Jew he believed that anti-Semitism can be solved neither by Zionism nor by Nationalism but only by Communism. That’s why in post-war times he couldn’t bear the anti-Semitism that was apparent in socialist countries. He graduated in 1934 and started working as doctor of medicine in the 1st Internal Clinic in Prague. Shortly afterwards, in December 1936, he enlisted as a volunteer and left to Spain to fight against Franko’s dictatorship. Surely he didn’t anticipate that his “war adventure” will take eight long years.

Spanish battlefields

In the Spanish Republican Army he worked at first as a doctor at a first aid station. A year later he became a head of the medical service of 11th brigade and later on a head of the medical service of 45th international division. Already he showed two qualities that were characteristic for all of his later deeds – courage and tolerance to opinions of others. The former member of international brigade, Hofman, remembers him as an invaluable, honest and devoted person: One of the most characteristic qualities of Františea Kriegl was that he was prepared to subordinate all his power, capabilities and behaviour to his beliefs regardless of personal consequences. His assistant Ministral Maria remembers: Even when bombs were falling everywhere around, his voice didn’t tremble. Later on in the Spanish press he also remembered an interesting event. We were put up at a village house close to Tarragona and on the wall of the living room was a picture of the Jesus Holy heart. The political commissary made a few mocking remarks and gestures that Kriegel immediately interrupted saying in a hard voice: Don’t mock, comrade Commissary even if you don’t believe, this is not our house. Major Kriegel coped hard with the defeat of democratic Spain and he was one of the last to retreat through the Pyrenees to France. During the capitulation on the border when the standard was handed over to representatives of the supreme command he was deeply moved.

Going to China with brother of E.Kisch

France welcomed Spanish volunteers by putting them into detention camps. On 13th February 1939 Kriegel was interned in St. Cyprien and later on in Gurs. Return to his home country was made impossible due to the occupation of German army. Therefore he answered to appeals of the Red Cross and together with other twenty doctors was in the first group to go to the Chinese – Japan front. His companion was Bedřich Kisch, who was the brother of the famous “ roving reporter” Egon Erwin Kish.

In the end of the year 1941 the war in the Far East deteriorated and the Japanese army gradually moved as far as the borders of India. In the following year Chinese troops were moved by air to India where they should have driven the Japanese army out of the Northern Burma and thus enabled supply of China with military material from India. Kriegel was, together with a few other doctors, moved to India to work for a medical service catering to Chinese troops. As a doctor of the Chinese-American tank troop he took part in conflict against the Japanese that ended in the capitulation of Japan in October 1945. In India he had to fight not only the enemy but also with illnesses. Other enemies appeared in the thick jungle as mosquitoes took their toll and malaria was rife . His commander, Colonel R.H. Brown said: I am happy to have doctor Kriegel, he doesn’t know fear and in the middle of the battle of Walawbum he saved 40-50 wounded soldiers.

February 1948

He returned back to his homeland in November 1945 and immediately got involved with the Communist Party. He worked as the Secretary of the KSČ County Council in Prague. At the same time he also worked as a doctor. Since the very beginning he wasn’t in favour of the ÚV (Central Committee) for his too independent and critical opinions regarding the activity of ÚV. In the beginning of 1948 he still believed that the “ Special Czechoslovakian way of Socialism” will be realized. Therefore in February 1948 he became a Political commissar of the People’s Militia. After the Communist coup, action committees started after to remove quality Communist specialists from their posts and Kriegel was afraid and discontent. He totally disagreed with such behaviour and whenever he found out about such incidents, he did all what was in his power to set things right. He went to the director of the Vinohrady hospital who was about to dismiss a few specialists and said: Don’t be a fool; you can’t treat people like if they were cattle.

In 1949 he became the Secretary of the Minister of Health. Very soon he embarked on a dangerous slippery slope, mainly after Gottwald’s speech in 1950 who he said that Spanish members of inter brigades were traitors because they were helping enemies. In the atmosphere of fear, enemies were looked for everywhere and in the Ministry of Health they found one in Kriegl. He was fired in 1952 on the grounds of a declaration that he was allegedly sabotaging the working class’ care and production of medicines. He left to Ttrovka where he worked as a doctor. His work here ended when he was taken in front of the company gates and labelled as the enemy of Socialism because he was allegedly supporting the absences of intellectuals who were made to work it the factory. He often issued sick notes for elderly, ill people and those who weren’t used to manual work. Subsequently, Kriegel left to work in Vinohrady hospital.

From rehabilitation to Cuba

When the political situation relaxed, František Kriegel was in 1957 partially rehabilitated and later on he became a senior consultant in the Vinohrady hospital. He received the Order of Work and in 1960 he was sent to Cuba to become a consultant of the Cuban government and to help with organising the Cuban health system. His activity was even in the first days interrupted by the mobilisation of national revolutionary militias in connection with the impending invasion of USA troops. When the situation consolidated, he threw himself into the fight against cancer, tuberculosis and was setting up gynaecological departments for female care. He also played an important role in increasing of the number of maternity wards.

After his return from Cuba, he refused an offer from the then most powerful man Antonín Novotny to return to the Party apparatus as a Secretary. He wanted to carry on as a doctor. After serious consideration and talks with friends he finally decided to stand as a candidate for the National Assembly in 1964 and he became the Chairman of the Foreign Committee. He soon got involved in controversy with conservative groups and became one of the primary representatives of the reformist movement within the Communist Party. In the beginning of April he was nominated to the post of the Chairman of the National Front’s Central Committee, later on he became a member of the ÚV KSČ (the Central Committee of the Communist Party) leadership. He later expressed his political views and desires: We wanted a prospering and fair socialist state that would give broad democratic rights and options to its citizens. His aspirations were unfortunately interrupted by the invasion of allied forces.

August 1968

On the day of the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops on 21st August, Kriegl was in the ÚV KSČ building. In that very morning he was arrested, together with Dubček, Černík, Smrkovský, Špačk and Šimon, and in the evening he was deported to Carpathian Mountains. Two days later they were kidnapped to Moscow for the signing of the so called Moscow Protocol. Out of the 20 members of Czechoslovakian representation that, as Kriegl wrote, was 1/2 made of prisoners and 1/2 of collaborates, only two politicians didn’t want to submit. Dubček who finally gave in and Kriegel who was all the time kept in isolation and was invited only when the signing of the document was enacted. In spite of the enormous coercion, especially from the President Svoboda, he refused to sign. He commented on the ÚV KSČ session that took place on 30.5. 1969: I refused to sign the so called Moscow Protocol. I did so because I saw it as a document that would tie up our Republic. I refused to sign because the signing took place at a time when our country was occupied and without consultations with constitutional authorities and it went against feelings of our people,…The treaty wasn’t signed with a pen but with guns. This speech became a very first samizdat (government-suppressed literature) because it couldn’ t have been published in official papers but was distributed illegally in many copies.

Russians originally didn’t want to allow Kriegel to return back to the country because they were worried that he would become a national hero. That was the first and last time when the members of the delegation resisted and refused to go back without Kriegel. Was it a newly founded feeling of resistance, of honour or of concern that if they left him behind, the nation that already favoured him, would call them traitors and Kriegl would become a real national hero? Who knows…

Almost immediately Kriegl was removed from his post of the National Front Central Committee’s Chairman and later on he was also unseated from Parliment. However, on 18th October 1968 he managed to vote in the National Assembly against the Treaty about the temporary deployment of the Soviet army on the Czechoslovakian territory (this time with support of three other members). After commencement of G.. Husák, he was prohibited to work as a doctor and was retired.

Closely watched pensioner

Until the end of his days Kriegl was watched by the state police. In 1976 two men burst into his flat and assaulted his wife. When he heard her screaming he run to the door and punched the biggest one with his fist. When his wife started screaming desperately, the attackers ran away. After some time Kriegl received an anonymous letter written in broken Czech that appealed to him to stop with his Zionistic activities. It was probably an act organised by the State police as well as numerous phone calls from the funeral parlour informing him that his special coffin is ready. Kriegel commented on that: Gangster methods, lying and abuse of power are the feature of the establishment. As it is apparent from recent past, it is not about an official title of the establishment, it is about forms and ways the majority exercises power of over minority.

In spite of all that, he was among the first people who signed in January the document called Charta 77 that for him meant the continuation of what the Prague Spring stood for. He thought very highly about people who signed it: People were signing with the full knowledge of the risk they were getting into and danger of loosing jobs and together with their families, becoming victims of persecution.“ All the more he was grieved for the fact that many important cultural personalities signed the so called Anticharta document. He was cut to the core by the Jana Werich’s signing and Jana Werich wasn’t able to give an open answer to an accusing letter Kriegel sent to him.

Afterwards the Secret police watched him till the end of his life. Every visitor had to prove his/her identity and their arrival as well as departure was reported by walkie-talkies to the relevant authorities. Whenever he left his flat he was followed, they went with him everywhere- shopping, to theatres, concerts and even for walks in countryside. Every person he talked with had to prove his identity. At one point, it was at a concert, he was introduced to a Spanish lady by his friend. She was then approached by the secrete police and asked for her ID, she said that she experienced forty years of Franko’s Fascism but nothing like that has ever happened to her.

In spite of all this, František Kriegel coped well with all this pressure and malevolent articles in the Czech press. Then Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs del Vayo said about him: “…I am not in the least surprised with the dignity and courage that Kriegl shows in this biggest crisis of his life… After all, Kriegel had eight years military experience. He was watched right until 11th September when he suffered a stroke and even in hospital he was secretly watched until his death on 3. 12. 1979. Because of the fear that his funeral would change into a subversive demonstration, Communists prohibited a funeral and his body was cremated without a ceremony.

Source: Leoš Kyša – hejrup.sk, ČTK, libri.cz etc.

František Sládek