Ludmila Janková

* 1939

  • “Dan had been doing his military service in Karlovy Vary back then, so we went so see him taking the oath. And we made a stop in Prague (Praha). As our aunt was buried there. And we couldn´t get anywhere. The Underground was closed. Then we got to the Old Town Square (Staroměstské náměstí) and there were crowds of people. I was with Šárka and this cousin of mine. And they were saying: ‘Let´s go take a look.’ I was telling them: ‘No, we won´t.’ But we went anyway and they would deply water cannons on us. I told them: ‘Let´s get out of here. We got dressed up for the oath. What would we do if they would pour water on us?’ So we ran and there was this lady who would let us to a house where we could hide.”

  • “The whole time he was there, for the whole six years, no one came to visit him. I just can´t imagine such a thing. His mother at home… As people didn´t know how to negotiate, how to arrange such a thing. As Franěk´s wife told me that it was complicated to arrange such a thing, to be allowed to visit someone, maybe once or twice a year. His mother didn´t arrange anything, nor did his sister and brother. And he had another sister who got married and lived in Prague (Praha). Her husband had been working at the Ministry of Industry and he used to visit a Thonet manufacturing plant in our region where they had met. And he didn´t want to have anything to do with him. And it was closer to Příbram from Prague (Praha). No one came to visit him. I can´t imagine something like that.”

  • “Once we were doing this voluntary work, picking potatoes, those of us who hadn´t been assigned to a detail. And I had been working as an accountant and he was the chief at a spinning workshop. And we were talking, we met somewhere at the place and I was telling him that I was on a vacation and he said that he had also been on a vacation but quite a long one for his taste. Then it struck me that I heard someone saying that he had been in jail. That was for the first time.”

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    Bystřice pod Hostýnem, 11.02.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 54:55
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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Are you not afraid to go into a forest with a criminal?

Ludmila Janková, a wedding portrait
Ludmila Janková, a wedding portrait
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Ludmila Janková, neé Bučková, was born on August 16th 1939 in Slavkov pod Hostýnem in the district of Kroměříž. Her father considered himself a Protestant, yet she had been raised as a Catholic. Her mother was a housewife; her father had been working as a foreman at Impregna, a wood-processing plant in Bystřice. Ludmila grew up as a youngest of three children. She attended primary school in Slavkov and Bystřice pod Hostýnem. After that, she had been commuting to study at the so-called eleven-year secondary school in Holešov. Due to her parents’ separation, she didn´t go to university to study teaching after taking the secondary school leaving exams as she had wished to, but had to support her mother, getting a job in Holešov. She witnessed the persecution of farmers while working at the agriculture purchase department and as an assistant to her boss, she was expected to be convincing farmers to join agricultural coops and meet the mandatory contribution quotas. After recovering from tuberculosis for a year, she started working as an accountant at Loana, a textile manufacturing plant in Bystřice, in 1960. There, she met her future husband, Jaromír Janek, a political prisoner, who had been sentenced to thirteen years for treason. After spending six years in labour camps, he had been released in 1960 due to President Antonín Novotný´s amnesty. They married and had a daughter and two sons. Ludmila had been working as an accountant at Loana her whole life. In 1981, her husband died of cancer of the intestines caused by the conditions during his incarceration. On October 28th 1989, on her way to see her son Daniel giving an oath in Karlovy Vary, Ludmila witnessed demonstration in Prague (Praha) on the anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia. In 2019, when the interview had been recorded, her daughter, Šárka Jelínková, has been a deputy chairwoman of the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People‘s Party and a senate representative. Ludmila has been living in Bystřice pod Hostýnem.