“I went apricot-picking with one of them, and I asked him: ‘Look, what brings you lot here? Explain it to me...’ And he replied: ‘I was in the Tatra Mountains until now, and Dad went to secure me a place in a student’s hall in Prague.’ Well, and I told him: ‘You little rascal, I’d let you sleep under a bridge for half a year...’ And he said: ‘Auntie, and that’s why we love you. Because I know that you wouldn’t let me sleep under that bridge, and I’d never dare not secure a place for myself.’”
“I started searching in books, and I said: ‘Your Grace, we still have chapels in this village and in this one...’ We kept going by bus or train, and always some three or so kilometres on foot over the fields... Then they sent us a blue Renault 8... The borstal girls were learning to drive a tractor, and I went up to the instructor and said: ‘Add me to the list with the girls, I teach them all the crossroads anyway... so I’ll take the exam for the tractor license as well...’ And he said: ‘Really, what use will it be you?’ I said: ‘When they fire me, I’ll go work as a tractor driver...’”
“And the church secretary [a Communist official - trans.] said: ‘Who sharpens her? God...?’ I started chuckling and said: ‘Mr Secretary, I’m not angry at you any more for not believing in God, if I imagined Him as a sharpener of razors [sitting] on the Pole, I wouldn’t believe in Him either...’ So we spoke like this for a while, and I reckoned to myself: ‘Mister, you’re eighty years old, you might meet him soon...’ We parted amiably, and from then on whenever he came to the parish house, whether the bishop was home or not, he always dealt with me... and I always sweetened it for him, of course, so we got on together just fine.”
Marcela Němečková was born on 2 June 1935 in Hradec Králové. Her father was a secondary-school teacher who was active in the Czechoslovak People‘s Party (a Christian Democratic party) after the war. In 1948 her father was reassigned to Děčín. In 1953 the witness studies at the Faculty of Education in Prague; upon graduating she received a job placement in Děčín. However, due to her religious affiliation, she had to request a reassignment to Litoměřice two years later and promise that she would attend church there. Although she was popular with her pupils and even prepared their parents for „maturita“ exams (secondary school finals), for which she received an award from the minister of interior, she had to leave again after three years due to her religion. She was unemployed for nine months, and then she found a job as a teacher at a reform school for girls in Kostomlaty. She began working with the secretly ordained bishop Otčenášek, who was serving as an ordinary priest in Trmice near Ústí nad Labem. In 1965 she moved to Trmice and was employed as an organist. She was a faithful assistant to Bishop Otčenášek until the Velvet Revolution - their cooperation withstood the considerable efforts of State Security. After the revolution Marcela Němečková worked with homeless people at the Prague Charity for fifteen years, and she continued to work for the Catholic Charity after returning to Hradec Králové. She now lives in the Charity House. She was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Cross for her activities.
