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Well I was in a way lucky, because between the Slansky trial, which took place in the end of 1952, and my own trial, half a year later in May 53, Stalin and GOTTWALD died. Had they been alive at the time of my trial, I would have, with almost certainty sentenced to death and hanged. And I was lucky in another way that in 1946 Slansky offered me a job, a position in the Party apparatus. Had I accepted it at that time, I would with absolute certainty been hanged with him. Because the man who did accept it was hanged with him. But I refused it because I never wanted to be a member of their apparatus.

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Well the specific charge was, the specific charge against Slansky and all those connected with that huge, well series of show trials, was more or less the same. High treason, espionage, conspiracy to subvert the constitution. Well charges enough to hang many people.

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I was charged with the same crimes.

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I was charged to have been a member ofan anti-state conspiracy, and as such having perpetrated high treason and espionage, andsubversion of the constitution. As I said I was accused eventually of four counts which carried the death sentence.

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Well look, I think it is, it would be useful to say a few words about the background of the genesis of these trials. See because they were repeated in various forms in all the newly acquired territories of the Stalinian Empire. But they were the most brutal in Czechoslovakia of all of them. See that was as soon as the, Second World War East West alliance broke to pieces, and changed into a situation, the situation of the Cold War. Stalin needed to discipline his new camp, his new empire, and he disciplined it to such an extent that people living in those countries should not develop any idea of being able to do anything except what he orders them to do. The unification, because it was a situation where war could break out at any moment, according, from his point of view, and he wanted to, he had to do anything, everything that he could to make sure that his newly established empire will not break to pieces under the impact of a war. So he had to discipline his camp, and one of the methods of disciplining it was terror. And the terror took a special form, namely all those countries went over to a regime of one party, which had in her hands all the power, and did not share it with anybody. And a regime of that sort, a totalitarian regime, cannot if something goes wrong, and people feel it as something wrong, something against their interest. Such a regime cannot come out and say every now and a time, it happens, excuse us comrades, we have made a mistake. Because if it does that, the second or third time the people say well go to hell, and let somebody else care about our interests. So they have to find explanations for such mishaps, and the explanation is that in the, in the structure of power, somebody got in who is, well what? With the aim of destroying it, of subverting it, of making it impossible that the aims of the regime be fulfilled. Well the Russian word for it is d...... or a spy, or an agent of the potential enemy. And those agents should be found out and eliminated. Now the problem was to choose people who should be, who were considered to be potential agents of the enemy. Who should be eliminated and before elimination, you should be used as scapegoats for anything that went wrong. In other words the party leadership designed certain categories of people who were not needed any more, from the point of view of the regime. And who were put at the disposal of the Secret Police to change them into enemy agents. Who would themselves confess that they were enemy agents. And the categories of people who were chosen for that horrible role were in the Czechoslovak case. Old communists who lived in the west. That means the political communists, political emigration, and the remains of the Spanish international brigades were caught up in the West, in various camps and so on, and especially in the Czechoslovak case the Jews. Because the Czechoslovak trial took part after the birth of the State of Israel, and Stalin had unpleasant experience with the State of Israel. The Soviet propaganda, well, expected that the State of Israel will be a very, something similar to a People's Democracy. So Stalin, Stalin supported the birth of Israel very actively, with the help of Czechoslovak arms, which saved the existence of Israel. Because he wanted to get Britain out of influence in the, Near East. But he succeeded in this part, but immediately America took Britain's part there, and that was his great disappointment.

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Oh well that was the key, the well red thread going through it, because Stalin came to the conclusion that he, that Israel, was a great disappointment for him. That it became an American dependence. And that Israel sent as his first, her first diplomatic representative to Moscow, the well known lady Golda Miers..... who later changed her name to Golda Mier, as ambassadoress. But when she arrived in Moscow she was greeted by the Soviet Jews as their representative. And Stalin well, concluded from this that the Jews have a double loyalty and should not be trusted. And he demanded discretely the Israeli government to call Golda Mier back home. When I arrived in Israel, at the beginning of 50, Golda Mier was already back, as Minister of Social Security, and I got acquainted with her as such. But as soon as she left the Soviet Union Stalin started terror, terroristic destruction of the Soviet Jewish cultural life. With murders of the leading representatives and so on, and in Czechoslovakia, it took two years to decide the scenario of the show trials. There were various possibilities contemplated, and rejected. At the end after this experience, the Soviet Union with the Jews it was decided that is should be the anti-semitic line. That means that the highest positioned Jews should be selected and presented as the real trouble makers, and enemies of the, of the state, and agents of the enemy.

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Well what was happening during my interrogation. I will give you a idea. I was arrested one afternoon, brought to that prison, with closed eyes, and put into a cell. It was in December, the cell was very cold, and whenever I was taken out of the cell, my eyes were bound over by a piece of cloth, and I was led to the lift, taken the lift high up, after my liberation I knew that it was the fifth floor, for interrogation. And after the interrogation I was again blindfolded and led to the cell. In the first, about two weeks I was interrogated permanently. Three officers with shifts of each, eight hours each took turns and I was prevented from sleep. For about, well two weeks, and now imagine what that does to the mind of a, that person, afflicted with such. That was a very simple device, but it was a horrible, well what? Destruction of one's personality, or consciousness. And then it went on interrogation every day, for several hours, at the mercy of the security police. Whenever they decided they came took you out, blindfolded you, you took the lift and so on. And there were various other means of psychological terror. I was never physically beaten, although threatened very often by beating, but never beaten because the psychological means were enough to break one. And now imagine that you are in such a situation, without seeing any other human being except your, your secret police officers whose job it is to change you into somebody who can be presented to the people as one of the worst enemies and, and well, people who secretly aim to destroy what the people want.

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Well, it entails for instance that you are being presented with a portrait of your own, as a, well, somebody of the worst kind of humanity. Systematically from the very beginning. You are being treated as the worst criminal that exists. And that attitude towards you is being maintained very consequently, from the beginning to the end. Whatever you did in your life is interpreted within the framework of this view of yourself. You did not do anything straight, anything honest in your whole life. Everything from your birth was criminal, and false. You pretended something and did something else. And there were various other means, I for instance, they tried to ration your food according to whether you were willing to follow the line of the interrogation or not. But in my case that was futile because I am a very small eater in general, and that didn't touch me. But there were cases where people were put in the cells without lighting. That people were put in the cells and had to walk all the time on their constant suspicion for hours until they collapsed. People were put in thecells where there was water up to their knees, and they had to walk in that for hours, and so on and so on.