"What I remember very well, the late 1940s and early 1950s, those horrible political processes. Firstly with Milada Horáková. I didn't experience it so intensely, my parents tried to cut me off. But not only people from Střešovice and Břevnov went to Hládkov, but also from Hradčany. I know there was a schoolgirl at that school, a girl whose father got into the trial of the 'big traitors'. ” - “You mean the party process? "-" Yes, I mean the party process. The girl was the daughter of a party official who drew the short straw and was tried. " - "Don't you remember the name?" - "I don't remember the name. I just remember it was a terrible thing back then. Papers came to Zdeněk Nejedlý's unified school, to the secondary school, where it was written: 'We agree with the trials of traitors and let them be punished by death.' Some words like that. And we had to sign it. We, the children at school. I came home and cried to my dad: 'I can't do that, because he's Daddy's dad.' And Dad got terribly upset, went to school and said that this was absolutely impossible. That it cannot be signed by minor children who have no responsibility. He made a terrible commotion because of that. And he was heard. "
"It is probably important to remember that at the time when I graduated, in 1960, it was enacted that one must submit to placement proceedings. That he can't choose the location himself, but he has to go where the need for a new worker sends him. For me, it was the case that the girls - five girls out of a total of twenty-seven students graduated - and two girls were placed at the CKD Research Institute. There they were horrified and said, 'We do not want two women! They will get married, have children and never be here! ' So I tried to get out of it, but it didn't work because the place was there. "
“When a person is a member of our church, a certain time comes in life, which is called confirmation. It is a confession of my own baptism, of being a member of the Church, of being a believer. And young people receive the so-called password for life to confirm. They choose the password themselves, or their parents choose it, or the pastor, that's different. I was confirmed at the age of twelve or thirteen and received a password chosen by my father. That password didn't make me very happy at the time. I was an immature girl. The motto is from the Epistle to the Romans, the conclusion of the twelfth chapter, where the apostle in the previous section calculates the pros and cons and compares the church to the body of the Lord, tells of the various roles that the members of that community have. Finally, he says a simple sentence: 'Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.' And my dad picked this for me. I may not have liked it then, but it seemed a little sublime. But later I realized that was an amazing slogan. That is what God wants from us. Cope with everything you come across and be able to avoid retaliation, even if I'm right. Because I can always cross the law, the thin line, and do something extra in that negative sense. And that's a mess. "
"I am a citizen of a state and in a way I oppose the actions of that state. But I can't bring my faith into it. That doesn't belong. That faith carries me and maybe leads me on the right path. But I do this as a citizen, as an educated person, a member of an institution, but not as a member of the church! It does not belong to the church! And whenever it did it in history, it went wrong. With the church and the people it worked for. We have countless examples. ” - "So what is the mission of the church to the public?" - "It's a refuge. And a place that will allow you to get to know yourself better, to find your way to see the Lord. If I am an unbeliever, what should someone who is a believer do with it? He can accept me as a human being, he can help me, he can comfort me in some grief. But there are certain things that the other person cannot. It's just between him and the Lord . "
"I think it's still dealing with it. Not that it dealt with it. You can't deal with such a thing by drawing a line. You can't make thick lines here. It does not work. There are no thick lines. Everyone has to cope with their own life. In their communion with the Lord. Not in prayer, but in connection with the Lord, in whom I sincerely believe. From my own personal experience, I believe that the Lord is with people and is up to them to be able to realize and admit it. And the other person can't intervene. So I think the church is coping with it, and that's so good. Because things that are set in motion by well-meaning human power are always guided and terminated in some way. And in this case it is not possible, one does not have much here. He needs to admit it. This is a certain weakness of man as such and of humanity as of humanity. I can't complete it, not even with the best thought process and the way of research. Bring to a good end. That end will never be good. And so it's better not to evoke that end this way. It is necessary to come to terms with the matter, accept the court and condemn. Whether he is just or unjust. That doesn't mean someone was killing or imprisoning me, but that was out of the question in this case. I think this is a way to get a little further. It is a difficult, difficult and painful journey. But there is such a path among people, otherwise it probably is not possible. "
Lydie Roskovcová was born as Lydie Součková on November 20, 1936 in a family that professed the evangelical faith for generations. Her father Josef Bohumil Souček was a professor at Hus‘s Czechoslovak Evangelical Faculty of Theology, after 1950 a professor and dean of Comenius‘s Evangelical Theological Faculty in Prague and an initiator of an ecumenical translation of the Bible. Lydia spent her whole life in a family house in Střešovice, which her parents built shortly before her birth. She studied at the grammar school in Prague‘s Hládkov and graduated in 1955 from the Jan Neruda Grammar School. She wished to study at the Faculty of Education and become a teacher, but due to the fact that she openly professed her faith in the application, she could not be accepted and was recommended to study at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics. Here she specialized in solid state physics. After graduating in 1955, she joined the newly established Institute of Physics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. She worked here until 1991, first in the luminescence department, later in the semiconductor laser department. She married a colleague from the studies, Vladimír Roskovec and gradually they had three sons. After the death of her father in 1972, she joined the Střešovice evangelical church as a member of the eldership. Since 1994, she has been the editor-in-chief of the Czech Brother magazine for nine years. Her involvement in the church led her to be elected synod curator in 1997, a position she held for six years.
The family of Štěpán Souček from Jestřábí Lhota near Kolín, the great-grandfather of the witness; standing: 1. Štěpán, peasant and heir of a family farm, 2. Karel, doctor, 3. Václav, peasant, 4. Jiří, official on the Prague Stock Exchange; sitting: 1. Josef, grandfather of the witness, eldest son, 2. Marie, wife of great-grandfather, 3. Anna, married Vedralová, 4. Marie, youngest, married Žertová
The family of Štěpán Souček from Jestřábí Lhota near Kolín, the great-grandfather of the witness; standing: 1. Štěpán, peasant and heir of a family farm, 2. Karel, doctor, 3. Václav, peasant, 4. Jiří, official on the Prague Stock Exchange; sitting: 1. Josef, grandfather of the witness, eldest son, 2. Marie, wife of great-grandfather, 3. Anna, married Vedralová, 4. Marie, youngest, married Žertová
