RED TOWER OF DEATH – VYKMANOV (DOLNÍ ŽĎÁR)
Introduction
The Red Tower of Death still stands in Dolní Žďár near Ostrov on the road to Vykmanov. It originally formed part of the Vykmanov labour camp, which carried the cover designation L. The camp was founded in February 1951 and was the smallest camp in the system of the Jáchymov uranium mines. It consisted of only two barracks – one for clergy and one for political prisoners classified as incorrigible – and had a capacity of about 300 inmates. The camp operated until 26 May 1956.
A prison was later built nearby and still functions today, while the original camp gradually disappeared and its area was absorbed by an industrial complex used by Škoda Plzeň for the production of trolleybuses and buses. The site is currently undergoing redevelopment, and the Tower of Death is owned by the Confederation of Political Prisoners, which is preparing to open it to the public. The building is listed as a National Cultural Monument.
Function and operation
The Red Tower, named after its brick colour, served as a crushing and sorting plant for uranium ore. Prisoners worked here in extremely dangerous conditions. A large crushing mill operated on the ground floor. Ore was crushed without protective screens and without water spraying, so the space was constantly filled with highly radioactive dust that spread into the camp and surrounding area. Around the building were locked storage boxes for high-grade ore.
Intermediate floors of the seven-storey structure contained screening systems through which the crushed ore fell to lower levels and was continuously sorted by quality. Prisoners, without any protective equipment, manually sorted the material. High-quality ore was compacted into metal barrels using wooden mallets, while lower-grade ore was loaded directly into railway wagons.
Each barrel about 50 centimetres high had to weigh 80 kilograms, which civilian employees checked using lead-weight scales. The filled barrels were then arranged into rows known as batches according to ore quality, each batch consisting of about 250 to 300 barrels. Transport to the railway station in Ostrov was provided by a siding connected to the Ostrov–Jáchymov railway line.
Prisoners and memory
Among the well-known prisoners held here was the academic sculptor Jaroslav Šlezinger, author of the monumental sculpture on the façade of the House of Culture in Ostrov. He was forced to create the work during his imprisonment. At the same time he secretly produced fourteen plaster Stations of the Cross reliefs, now installed in the Chapel of St Florian in Ostrov.
It was in this environment that the term MUKL became widely used for prisoners, interpreted as “Man Intended for Liquidation”. In the highly radioactive conditions of the Tower of Death, the life expectancy of prisoners was often only one to three years.
Present day
Today the Red Tower of Death is one of the most important surviving structures documenting the system of forced labour in the Czechoslovak uranium industry. The Confederation of Political Prisoners plans to establish here a Museum of Forced Labour presenting replicas of the technological equipment as well as tools used by prisoners in mining and ore processing.
Photo gallery: http://mipalfi.rajce.idnes.cz/Ruda_vez_smrti/
