“I met a man from State Security in Zlín shortly after monetary reform. I did not know his real name, just his code name. His name was Gusta. And that Gusta told me on the way to the square that if I did not sign it, he would ruin me. I was then transferred from a switchboard operator to a chambermaid. And that Gusta from State Security met me after it and told me that the transfer to a chambermaid had been a punishment. I acted quickly on the basis of it. I went to visit a very good acquittance of mine, I knew that his telephone conversations were not eavesdropped on. I went to see him and asked him to call my aunt in Prague to tell her that I would come to see her all of sudden. We agreed on it, she told me to arrive. To make it short, after this event when they told me that they would ruin me I looked for a solution to leave the hotel. The thing is employees could not leave for other districts at that time. I went to see a Mrs. Večerková who worked in the office and she was willing to help me. She told me that she would write down that I was going to get married and that I suddenly left for Prague.”
“But State Security noticed me then, they noticed that I spoke and wrote German and that I could eavesdrop on telephone conversations between foreigners and businessmen. They wanted me to inform them and to denounce people. But I still refused them. They also went to Svatý Štěpán to see my mum, they visited her at night to make her persuade me to cooperate with them. My mum told them back then that her daughter knew what she was doing. They often invited me to an apartment, it was Bata’s apartment who were not there any longer at that time. It was room number 523, 523 and they talked to me there, they promised me many things and they forced me to sign the contract. But I still resisted them.”
“I always inclined towards sports and did exercise as I could for example on a handrail and so on. Members of the Sokol movement noticed that I could train for Slet with them. So I started to train in Zlín for the last Slet in 1948. I remember that I went to Prague for Sokol Slet as the only gymnast from our company. We did not know that it would be the last one then. Mr. director Lucký gave me a holiday not for a fortnight but for three weeks. He also gave me long-lasting food so that I had something to eat. I remember that we went to Zlín, we called the carriages pig carriages. Those were open carriages, there were only railings there. We sang national songs everywhere when we stopped until we arrived in Prague. It was amazing even though I did not realize how hard times would come.”
Květa Havelková, née Lorencová was born on 12 July 1927 in Svatý Štěpán near to Moravian-Slovak borders as an illegitimate child of Amálie Lorencová. Her father Štefan was Hungarian and he died of consequences of an accident in a stone pit. Having finished her elementary education in 1941, Květa worked in a pub in Svatý Štěpán, after some time her uncle helped her to find a better job in a hotel in Zlín - the then Social House Hotel (later Moscow Hotel). She took part in XI Sokol Slet in Prague in 1948. Having taken a course, she worked in an international switchboard as a switchboard operator until the beginning of the 1950s. State security asked her to cooperate with them which she refused to do. They blackmailed her over a long period of time, they wanted to use her knowledge of the German language and her working contacts with foreign countries, they asked her to inform on and gave information about businessmen. When they transferred her to a chambermaid in the hotel, she escaped to Prague all at once. She got married to Josef Havelka in 1954, they had a daughter in 1961 and they moved to Brandýs nad Labem four years later. She became a widow in 1988. At the beginning of the 1990s, she set out on her life‘s journey to the USA and she spent there a year as an au-pair. Květa was an active member of the Sokol movement. She took part in Sokol Slet in Prague in 1948 for the first time and in 2012 for the last time. She also sang in Brandýs Bojan choir for several decades. Although she suffered from health issues, she also worked as a volunteer caregiver for the infirm. She became friends with travellers Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund in Zlín/Gottwaldov and she proofread their first book of travels and she kept in touch with them from then on. Květa Havelková died in 2016.
