“Then I got a placement in Opavsko to Kravaře. But I was very interested in Brno. I performed at Reduta occasionally, so I risked it and I didn't start working in Kravaře. Even the then director of the National Theater Brno wrote me a supporting letter that they needed me in Brno. I sent it all to the Ministry of Education. They wrote to me that I was expelled from the teaching status, that I did not behave like a proper socialist teacher, for not going to the place I was assigned. So I wasn't allowed to teach anymore."
“In April 1950, I think he (General Alexei Cepicka – editor´s note) was appointed to the post of Minister of Defense. He was the son-in-law of President Klement Gottwald, so he was given this post. And probably wanted to show off somehow, so he proposed that there will be military training for girls as well. It started in the first year of college. Military service was always on Saturday. We went to the barracks in Šumavská with the girls. There they were not prepared for it. They had neither uniforms nor anything else for us. There were no showers or toilets for girls. It was a classic barracks for men. Then it was over and it was interesting that we had all the university exams finished, but we did not get any diploma. That was expected until we passed the final military test. It is over at Libavá. We've all done the military tests. A senior officer came and gave us all the military books, recommending that we make a deposit that we were entitled to do so. The boys got some ranks, but we girls didn't. Then representatives from the faculty came and handed us our diplomas. Once we girls had that college degree in our hands, we put the military books on the table and said we were not interested in any down payment. It was a certain satisfaction for us because we made the war involuntarily and out of coercion. And so the whole era of Čepička's idea was over. There was a total of seventeen of us who went through this whole thing."
“Of course, we observed it. But I was eighteen so I had different interests. But we noticed a variety of changes. For example, we walked in Kounicova Street in Brno, once there was the seat of the social democratic party. Suddenly it wasn't there anymore. It merged with the Communists. Otherwise, we also watched all those affairs with Šling, Slánský and so on. Before that, there were also so-called high school games, in which we all participated. This was the last time I visited the Fišer family in Prague, as I talked about them. The war began and Mr. Fišer left for England as a pilot. Then he returned and was locked up within two years. At that time, they behaved very badly towards those foreign pilots who fought for our freedom. Initially, when Mr. Fišer returned, he was a senior officer in the Air Force, but then, after 1948, it was over. They threw kicked them all out and locked them up. I can't understand why they did it when they fought against the Germans, and they ended up doing it themselves."
Dagmar Ferebauerová, née Sedlmajerová, was born in Brno on 27 February 1930. She spent the war together with her mother in Rousínov near Brno. She has been attracted to movement, dance and theatre since childhood. In the 1950s, due to the order of the Minister of Defense, Alexei Cepicka, she had to undergo basic military training as part of her university studies. She is among the only seventeen women who experienced the war in the experiment. After her studies, the regime forbade her to teach for a while, because she refused to take up her appointment. Her husband, Milan Ferebauer, was dismissed from the then Park of Culture and Recreation after 1968 because of his open attitudes against the August occupation. At the same time, with the advancing normalization, they had to cease their activities as well as their common variety ensemble, through which they engaged various artists. The witness has remained faithful to movement as such to this day. Currently, she is a repeated winner in seniors swimming. In 2019 she lived in Brno.
