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Red Executor's Daughter — her pain and her generosity

  • Date: 14 Jan, 2014 at 11:43AM,
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  • Prosecutor Karel Vas is known as the Red Executor. He sent innocent people to the gallows in communist Czechoslovakia during the 1950s.

by Jana Svehlova

His daughter mentions in an interview published in the Czech daily Lidove noviny "…I have donated part [inheritance from her father] to the Daughters of the 50s who suffered as a consequence of  horrible decisions by those in power; including my father's frightful acts… I am the daughter of the Others."

By “the Others” is meant children of political prisoners whose parents were in power before they themselves were either imprisoned or executed.* What pain some feel when they realize the horrors their fathers perpetrated?

The symbolic apology of the daughter of Prosecutor Vas by donating part of the inheritance** to the Daughters of the 50s is uncommon in the Czech Republic. It is my hope that her gesture will meet some understanding among those who refuse to accept that she is not responsible for her father's sins.

PS: documentary with Karel Vas (some parts are in English; Prosecutor Vas states: "I am innocent and my hands are clean…")

The Trial of the Secretary of the Communist Party Rudolf Slansky 

**the other parts of the inheritance she donated to other non-profit organizations

EDITOR: Midge Cooke, MSN