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We were then sent back to the Institution and later on to the Tower because our place was taken by Cominform supporters. We were put aside because they had so much to do with their own comrades. Crying, torturing, killing, meetings. This is what they were going through. Every day some of them died. They were as unhappy as we were so that soon we got along well. They had their own management and guards and they were sent away in 1950. The priests were sent again to the "Desert". I got off somehow because I had terri ble pains in my appendix. I did not feel like going back there, but I regretted in later. We dug potatoes at first and then broke stones into small pieces preparing them for road building. After tipping out these broken stones we levelled them harnessed like horses to a huge stone roller, up and down the road for the whole day.
About ten priests, including myself, were soon moved to room No. 8. I remember that Father Joža Šimečki was by my side. In this room, there were several Ustashas, Chetniks and partisan officers but we got along well because they were all nice people excluding a few criminals. Even these criminals behaved correctly when they were given food and cigarettes. They were always on the side of those unjustly persecuted. To tell the truth, there were also some corrupt people who tried to fawn upon the manager's assistant, Cimeša, by being his informers. He could not stand us because he hated openly everything that had anything to do with Croatia or the Catholic Church. He was born in Kordun and he wanted to destroy us completely using the most underhand methods.
One day before Christmas Eve, a guard came to our door and said: "Ramljak and Šimečki, take your blanket, spoon and mess kit. I don't know why you are going into solitary confinement, since you have not been punished". In front of the solitary cell, there was a policeman, Marko Borovac, born in Pozarište, Lika. He ordered us to take off our clothes but I refused to obey. "I can kill you," Marko said, but I still refused to take off my clothes. They took us from one cell to another for the whole night to wear us out. The guard put me with my straw-bed in a room filled with water and shortly afterwards ordered me to move to another cell. I had to drag my soaking wet strawbed behind me. I huddled in a corner of the solitary cell without windows. My heart was breaking with cold as the temperature went below - 20 degrees Centigrade. On Christmas Eve, Borovac tried to be witty: "Black coffee for breakfast, it's Christmas Eve and you have to fast". It would have been all right if it had been black coffee, but this was just black water. The whole day went by and nobody appeared. Christmas passed and nobody came. I was sent back among other prisoners, later, but I never received an explanation for this punishment and mistreatment.
The point was to prevent people and especially the priests from celebrating Christmas as they had done the year before when Christmas songs had been sung. This was the only reason and the guards did not care about the fact that we were freezing in our solitary cells. The important thing was to carry out the orders of UDBA members. On 27 December, the priests were taken into the courtyard to clear snow and ice. Then we had to sit on these ice piles and break stones although we had no coats or any warm clothes. This went on for several days and then we had to carry these broken stones in wheel-barrows. We also drew earth from a pit and transported bricks. Things were getting worse and the situation was similar to that experienced in 1947 and 1948. The young worked with wheel-barrows and the older ones stripped willow switches in the basket-making workshop. It is difficult to say who had a harder time. And still, we prayed the Rosary every day, we read the contemplations and every Sunday listened secretly to the Holy Mass and gave Communion. I often held the mass services and this gave me strength to endure everything.
After my appendectomy, I spent some time recovering in the prison infirmary. While I was lying there, a prisoner was brought in with broken legs. He looked at me and started to cry. This was Ante Fabris from Budva, the former Croatian lieutenant. I asked him what had happened. He told me that he had been put in solitary confinement. "When I came there," he continued, "I saw a paper with the title "About Deacons and Other Priests". I put this piece of paper in my shoe and when they searched me, they found it and started beating me without mercy. Cimeša beat me most cruelly. When the pain became unbearable, I jumped out of the window and hurt myself'.
After leaving the hospital, I spent three months in solitary confinement. Dr. Marko Klarić. the parish priest of the Church of St. Peter in Zagreb and the Reverend Vlado Jurjević and Ivo Bjelokosić were together with me.
After this three months' isolation, we were sent back to our department and then again to another one.
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