"Now we were driving and several cars followed us from Prague. It was clear they were following us. Then we stopped at someone's, I think it was Lada Lis' sister's, to get something. Other cars joined in and we stopped by the side of the road because the baby was going to pee, so the cars kept going past, back and forth, back and forth, what was going on. There were at least five of them, these cars. The money that was spent on these things was amazing too. We got to the hotel and we checked in and we saw these trackers in the lobby already running up to the desk and already asking what it was, what it was like. Then they treated us strangely there. We were only there for about two days and then we left. Then there was a record somewhere that we went on a masked trip or something like that."
"On January 5th, it was my son's birthday, he was at my parents' house in Pilsen and I was planning to go there. I was alone at home and at 4 a.m. they knocked on my door: 'Search warrant, get dressed, get yourselves together.' There was a gentleman, the house trustee, and in the cellar there was a gymnastics grenade, I don't know where it came from. They confiscated it as a grenade, and the janitor, the confidant, says, 'Wow, gentlemen, I've been through it in Germany, but they wouldn't take this.' They took me to Bartolomejska [Street] and it started like, 'You have this child...'"
"We had to go to the principal's office and sign [the Anticharter]. It was controlled by a secretary whose husband was a very tough apparatchik in Karlovy Vary and my father knew him from that time, from the forty-eighties. This lady was a secretary at Šetlík's and she protected him terribly. She was one of the few members of the Communist Party who were in the [Museum of Decorative Arts]. She stood there at the signing sheet and said, 'Children, you have to sign this or you will hurt Dr. Hejdová. You have to sign it. She's protecting all of you.' So they were signing. I was still called Pribikova at that time, so I signed Hřebíková. She figured it out and she rewrote it for me. So yes, I signed the Anticharter."
Helena Koenigsmarková was born on 30 August 1947 in Pilsen to the painter Alena Koenigsmarková, née Helmhacker, and the poet Josef Koenigsmark. Her father was imprisoned in the Small Fortress of Terezín during the war for resistance activities. Because of her dossier profile, she had trouble getting into high school. In 1965 she graduated from the Pilsen Gymnasium and between 1967-1972 she studied art history at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. She lived through the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops in Pilsen. From 1971 to 2023 she worked at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. She had a son Kryštof with one of the leading representatives of Charter 77, Václav Komeda. Because of her relationship with the dissident, she faced interrogations and searches by State Security (StB). She participated in the dissemination of samizdat literature. In 1981, Václav Komeda was forced to emigrate as part of the Asanace action. She participated in the demonstrations in 1988 and 1989. From 1990 to 2023 she was the director of the Museum of Decorative Arts. In 2023 she lived in Prague.
Great-grandmother of Helena Koenigsmark Karla Kučerová-Guldener, ca. 1947. The photo was taken by Renata Baleyová, who was a victim of the murderer Hubert Pilčík
Great-grandmother of Helena Koenigsmark Karla Kučerová-Guldener, ca. 1947. The photo was taken by Renata Baleyová, who was a victim of the murderer Hubert Pilčík
Josef and Alena Koenigsmark, parents of Helena Koenigsmark, ca. 1947. The photograph was taken by Renata Baleyová, who was a victim of the murderer Hubert Pilčík
Josef and Alena Koenigsmark, parents of Helena Koenigsmark, ca. 1947. The photograph was taken by Renata Baleyová, who was a victim of the murderer Hubert Pilčík
