The Fate of Female Political Prisoners and the Rule of Law

Tuesday, October 11, 2011, 18.00–19.30, Academy of Sciences

In cooperation with Politicalprisoners.eu

 

Moderator:

Tomáš Bouška, Director, Politicalprisoners.eu, Czech Republic

 

Panel Discussion:

Hana Truncová, Former Political Prisoner, Czech Republic

Anita Lackenberger, Director, Produktion West, Austria

 

 

Tomáš Bouška introduced the NGO Politicalprisoners.eu. This organization remembrance the life stories of former political prisoners in order to identify victims and offer a historical perspective of these experiences. In this context he presented the trailer of the film “A Portrait of a Woman Political Prisoner”,which was produced by the organization. Bouška believes this story of Ms. Karla Charvátová “presents the violence separation from their families, sexual abuse, and social stigmatization which female political prisoners experienced.” His motto is, “Every old person who dies is like a library that burns down.”

 

Hana Truncová was imprisoned between 1951 and 1960 in the former Czechoslovakia for helping people flee Czechoslovakia. She was in a number of prisons: Pankrác prison in Prague, Kladno and Varndsdorf. She described the inhumane conditions in the prisons and stigmatization she experienced after her release.

 

Anita Lackenberger is the director of the Austrian company Produktion West, which focuses on searching for Austrian women transported to Soviet Gulags after World War II. These stories are documented in her short film “The Lost Lives: Austrian Women in Soviet Gulag.”The film tells the stories of female labor migrants sent to the Gulag n the 1920s, as well as the stories of women interned during World War II. In both cases the women were used for forced labor, and few survived. Yet, more women than men survived and Ms. Lackenberger believes, “For women it was somehow easier to survive, they tried to look after themselves more and had more skills to survive. Perhaps it was the desire to see their children.”