Members of Slánský family rehabilitated seven decades later
Seventy years after the execution of Rudolf Slánský, a prominent Communist Party member convicted in an infamous 1952 show trial, a court in Prague has rehabilitated his wife and son in memoriam. The court found that they had been illegally deprived of their personal freedom by the communist regime.
Rudolf Slánský, who had been general secretary of the Communist Party and second only to the then president, Klement Gottwald, was convicted along with several others on trumped up conspiracy charges. He and 10 others were hanged in Prague in December 1952, just a few days after the end of the trial.
Following her husband’s arrest, his wife Josefa was detained and interrogated at Ruzyně prison for several months, after she refused to testify that her husband was a traitor.
On Wednesday, Judge Michal Roubíček of the Prague Municipal Court ruled that Mrs. Slánská, who died in 1995, had been held behind bars illegally.
“It was unequivocally established that she was deprived of her personal liberty from at least March 1, 1952, until April 30, 1952.”
Since Josefa Slánská’s detention file has not been preserved in the archives, the court had a problem establishing the exact time when she was held in prison and had to rely on her memoirs, in which she defined the time of her imprisonment as January to April, or May 1952.
As for her son, the late dissident and Charter 77 signatory Rudolf Slánský Jr., the police arrested him on January 31, 1972 and searched his home in connection with alleged unspecified anti-state activities. He was released three days later without being charged.
While Josefa Slánská never gave up her belief in communism and never acknowledged her husband’s complicity in the crimes of communism, it is still important for the state to deal with the past, says the spokesman of the Prague Public Prosecutor's Office, Aleš Cimbala:
“Once an injustice has been committed, even if it has been committed against people who had themselves in some way contributed to the communist machinery, it is still a decision that has no grounding in law.”
The motion to open the case was filed by the politician's daughter, Marta Slánská. Mrs. Slánská, who is 75 years old, excused herself from the court hearing due to health problems and her strong emotional attachment to the events discussed. She was represented by her attorney Lubomír Müller, who had this to say after the verdict:
“I am happy about the verdict because justice has finally been done. It has been declared that the state's action against Mrs. Josefa Slánská was illegal.”
Speaking through her attorney, Marta Slánská said she hoped the court’s decision could pave the way for other families to seek similar legal satisfaction.
Her attorney, Mr. Müller, told Czech Radio that he has already been in contact with some of them, including Ivan Margolius, whose father Rudolf was executed along Rudolf Slánský in 1952.
