That’s the way we were, we Hofmans
Naděžda Maňhalová, née Hofmanová, was born on 5 March 1931 in Prague-Vinohrady. Her grandfather from her mother‘s side started the granite quarries in Prosetín near Skuteč. After he died in 1938 the family moved there and took over the business. Shortly after the war began the witness‘s father joined the resistance. He participated in events such as preparations for a revolt against the Nazis in Prague. In 1942 he was arrested and sent to Flossenbürg concentration camp. He managed to survive the war, and after a death march in the spring of 1945 he returned home to his family Prosetín. During her father‘s absence the family hid one of his fellow resistance fighters. After the war Naděžda Maňhalová studied at a grammar school in Chrudim, where she was snitched on for making fun of a speech by the Communist functionary Zdeněk Nejedlý. She ended up with a suspended sentence. In 1951 in Pardubice she happened to meet a friend of hers from Prosetín, and during their conversation she unwittingly mentioned several facts and names that subsequently appeared in a broadcast of Radio Free Europe. In October of the same year she was arrested and then sentenced to five years of prison. After the death of Josef Stalin in 1953 she was released by amnesty. Two years later she was arrested for a third time when her whole family was locked up for hiding the political fugitive Miroslav Seferovič. Naděžda Maňhalová was sentenced to four years of prison. She was given a premature reprieve in 1957 for health reasons, as she had contracted typhus and hepatitis while in prison. After being released she spent a long time searching for a job, before she was finally accepted at a textile mill in Skuteč. Their property, which the Communists had confiscated from the Hofmans in the 1950s, was returned to them after 1989.