PhDr. Eva Jůzová

"From the sixth grade on, my class teacher was a devoted Communist, but her family had their own little businesses. I think that in a way, she was fair. She told me that she had helped me because I told the truth. In the history class, I said that Prague was liberated by General Vlasov’s army, it was a major blunder [the official history claimed that the whole Czechoslovakia was liberated by the Red Army]. Then we came back after the summer holidays and she asked where we went for the holidays. The children said that they were in Pionýr [Communist-led youth club] summer camps and I said I was in Sek. She did a bit of act and asked: in Seč? In that international Pionýr summer camp? Children, look at the star we have here.’ And I stood up and said that no, it is Union of Evangelical Courses [SEK = Sdružení evangelických kurzů]. The kids laughed and she looked at me sternly and asked whether we had prayed there. I said, pretty insolently: ‘So what…?’ Parents had to come to school. And it went on like this. I should go straight to work after finishing the eighth grade. And this teacher went to that secretary who was in charge of schools and she told him that I am the best pupil in the whole school, I also recited, sang in the choir, played the piano at all the performances for factory workers and wherever we went. And when the news spread that Rehova is not allowed to go to a high school, those workers grumbled: ‘What’s your problem with them, when there’re those shows and performances, she plays, sings, recites Neruda…’ And that’s the way I got to high school.”

"Our dads knew each other and they shared their stories. The Kryl family lived across the street to the side… we lived behind an abandoned plot where our garden was and across the crossing, there was a house where the Kryl family lived. Then they moved them to the Captain Jaroš Street where they had their printing shop. And they destroyed it in front of the whole family. The whole printing shop, the presses. It was a rare printing shop with priceless types. It was so cruel and moronic… allegedly it‘s what the People’s Militia did. I have to check it yet but I think that it was the People’s Militia and they just smashed it, with pickaxes, the presses. Karel Kryl witnessed this and he couldn’t forgive the Communists. He was a year younger than I was.”

“Dad cleaned up in the shop and they started arriving straight away to get their watches repaired. They had this many of them, up their elbows. But everyone was happy. I had my own Russian babysitter, a young Russian soldier who would take me out for strolls in a pram so that mom could be helping dad because everyone wanted to have their wristwatches fixed, they wanted to get them back soon and parents did what they could. And every soldier sat at dad’s table and waited until his wristwatch is repaired, then he would put it on and another one came and one more and one more… and parents were going mad. They were tired. Dad came up with an idea, he would put the repaired watch in the shop window with a name tag so that they would know that they can pick it. They did it but the next day, the window was broken and the watch was stolen. But they came, shouted ‘gimme my watch’ waving submachine guns. We had a stroke of luck, there was a Russian officer riding a horse, coming from Veltrusy. He was young and intelligent and when he saw it, everyone had to stand in attention, everything had to be written down, the shop window got fixed and the watches were shown but there was a guard. But dad said that it was tough, that they were really lucky.”

“I remember, and it was not only once. I arrived at Hostěradice, the housekeeper at the parsonage opened the door, I told her that I need to go to the church. She invited me in but she was somewhat upset. We sat down with a cup of coffee and she told me how the pastor was arrested and that he’s all alone here, that they made a box, he didn’t know anything about it but they set it up to make it look as if he knew it, and they put it in a pew in the church. Then the State Security came and found it. They took him away and she had no clue where he was and what was going on. So we were sitting at the parsonage… and this happened in several variants to me, that we actually trusted each other.”