When I was visiting Prague in 2018, I went to the Archive of Secret Police Files and obtained access to their online files, accessible via ebadatelna.cz web site. Not all files are there, but to my surprise I found the file on Jan Kotva, my friend. He was recruited by Czech army counterintelligence 3 month after we were drafted for the 2 years service to spy specifically on me, and 3 other soldiers. His controlling officer, Captain Josef Uruba, trained him, using his being kicked out of school for the May Day student demonstration, as part of gaining our confidence. He was trained how to watch us to potentially attempt any sabotage. Four of us were specifically named for our “dangerous” political background: in my case, because my father had a high government position and was two times in prison for actions against the communist state; in the case of Ginter Bedrunka, for his uncle being a WWII pilot who stayed in England; in Rudolf (Risa) Wagner’s case, his uncle was thirteen years in prison for actions against the Communist state; and Bohumir Cuhel, for being a Catholic priest. Kotva was reporting on us for the remainder of the two years in the army. He also reported on his own, not ordered to, on one other soldier, Jiri Cerny. The funny thing is, that for his reporting, he received at one point a reward of 50 Kcs, which was like $10.

After the army, in October 1964, the army counterintelligence transferred him under the control of the secret police in Prague. His job was, again, to spy on his former soldier comrades, meaning me, and newly on some people in the theater academy Kotva was attending. The specific names were Jelena Palouskova, Sarka Lipska, Jiri Klem, Jana Cihakova, Zuzana Kocova, Milos Janda, Mirian Kantorkova, Petr Novak and Blanka Dvorakova. Kotva kept working for the secret police until one year after I left Czechoslovakia. The secret police released him in October 1966 from his contract, because Kotva was beaten by some uniformed cops at night in Prague; the cops also damaged his nice leather jacket. Kotva tried to use his secret police connections against the uniformed police, but they were not helpful. Kotva was very disappointed and did not want to continue to work for the secret police anymore. He also was, at that time, traveling with the theater group called Maringotka. He was not spending lots of time in Prague to keep meeting his assigned “friends”. As a final determination, he was allowed to end the contract and since he delivered on his assignments extremely well, both for the army counterintelligence and later for the secret police, he was free to travel to the west, if and anytime he wanted to.

So, this is the end of story about my dear “friend” Jan Kotva. He chose as his code name, Jan Hamlet. Throughout the time I knew him, I never suspected that he became my friend on the orders of army counterintelligence and that it was his job to report specifically on me to them and later to the secret police in Prague. Even with all my life experiences and after all the time passed since then, I felt hurt by it, even though I should know better.

Source: Archiv bezpečnostních složek (ABS), sign. TS-611569 MV, Jan Kotva (28 April 1943), cover name “JAN HAMLET,” consulted through eBadatelna.