Helena Jindáčková

“When I had been here for some time and was allowed to visit home [ten years after the escape], I still had that grey passport. It meant that I could go, but Austrians wanted me to have a transit visa from Germans, and Germans wanted the same from Austrians first. That was a problem. You always had to wait for three months. Then I said, I will do it by fair means or foul, and I looked for someone to marry me. You paid for that – still in lire at the time. I asked some friends if anyone had an uncle who could get married if I paid them. One of my friends said: ‘You know what? I’ll do it, give me the money.’ He was a little younger than me. So we got married. My new name was Bannci. I had to borrow a ring from a friend who was my bridesmaid; I didn’t realise it was necessary. Her ring was too small, so we searched the entire building for a toilet and some soap so she could take it off and give it to me. After the ceremony, Aurelio was waiting for me in front of the town hall and he asked me: ‘Won’t you invite your husband for a cup of coffee?’ So we had a cup of coffee at a bar opposite the town hall. Interestingly, when we were arranging it all, my future husband told me: ‘Can we do it three weeks earlier? I am leaving for the country…’ I said, why not, and when the wedding was over Aurelio and I went to Cuba. When we went to have breakfast at the hotel in the morning, I heard, ‘Helena!’ and that was my husband. He happened to be there too. So you cannot really say I didn’t go on honeymoon with him! We did it all to get those papers, to make things simpler. And for me to get Italian citizenship, I had to give up mine.”

“We were in a great shape. When we went on the pitch, we did a warm-up like before a match. The girls [in Fiorentina] went kicking the ball straight away, but you can rip a muscle that way, no real sportsperson will do that. Girl football was just starting out [in Italy]. We already had a few years under our belts at Slavia at the time. We were better in that sense. Before we went to Italy, [our coach] had us practice hard – running round the pitch in heavy, winter tracksuits. There were buckets of water prepared around the pitch. We were red hot, and we could wash. It’s hot in Italy and he was preparing us for everything. Some work was being done at Slavia at the time; there were heaps of gravel with snow. We had to run up the hills, holding hands and wearing rubber boots. When one of us slipped the others had to hold her. The practice was murderous, but we were in a killer shape. We were successful. I was the team’s beautician. The coach said that guys would come to see women playing football. Guys’ matches are different, but when they go watch a women’s match, they want to see women. I had to make sure the girls didn’t have dirty fingernails. We had to be groomed; we all had matching clothes and suitcases.”