Jarmila Kročková

“Then the 1950s came, when the father was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for high-treason and I don’t know what else. At the time I think that three days after they arrested the father without him knowing anything; he left for Prague to a meeting and he never came back. Three days later the mother was also arrested. And from the stories I know it was terrible for her. She had no idea what happened to the father, didn’t have a clue what happened. They arrested her, took us too and somewhere on the way they separated us from mum. They took mum in one car and drove us in the other one, as the story goes. My brother ended up in a children shelter in Budišov, which is in Ostrava region. Back then I was not even three and half, as mum was arrested in January and I was born in November, so just over three. I was taken to Beskydy to secret police. I was an older couple. They renamed me to Jarmila Nevludová. Although my mum´s sister lived in Košice amd my father´s sister in Teplice with her husband, son and daughter, they were searching after us, what happened to us, there were no info provided at all. Mum was thirty six, when she was arrested. She was leaving as a beautiful black-haired woman and two years later, which she spent in custody, she was never tried, she came out as white as a feather. I never saw her black again. I only know it from photos. I also know from the telling that during those two years, when the processes were already on, they offered her several times to divorce her husband, so they´d let her go and see her children. And if she divorced him and renounced him, so everything can be as it used to be... I got to say that mum was brave and didn’t do it. And also from telling I know that secret police dictated her letters saying what I am doing and what does my brother and sent the letters to him (father). We know it, my brother and I that the letters existed. Mother was telling us about it that they did such thing, writing made up stories about us and actually she didn’t know anything about our whereabouts. That must have been crazy, I cannot even imagine that! But from the telling I know, that there was something alike, as they were applying a big psychologic pressure at him. They were making up constructions so that he´d confess... from the secret police they learnt a lot, or I don’t know from whom...”

“So when dad was in a prison, they´d tell me he went to a treatment. And only when I was nine, about a year or two before they released him, I found out. And I remember I went to see him in Valdice. And we sat opposite to each other at the table. I was kind of nicer. I know I said I didn’t like the way he looked, his lips were very fat... well it was a lot to digest for me. In Valdice it was actually still ok. But I know once he was in Ruzyne and we visited him. And in front of the prison they were selling show-whites. And I told mum: ,Look, I will buy him flowers.‘ And I did. And he was behind the glass and a wire fence and secret policeman didn’t allow me to give it to him. I know for sure I cried. And there was totally no contact, we could not touch each other! I went to prison twice like that. Before mum was visiting with brother and uncle, they always accompanied her. The visits were scarce, very few indeed.”