"I should have gone to the Soviet Union. I ought to choose Moscow, Leningrad or Crimea. So I chose Leningrad because I was curious about the Hermitage. And now suddenly Chernobyl exploded. The wave of the first radiation just went north. But the chief hygienist did not warn the population at all. I listened to Free Europe. We knew that it went to Norway, Sweden and Finland. Leningrad is really close. So I refused."
"At first I have memories of our dad listening foolishly to the radio. He summoned neighbors and listened to London. We were already under German rule, we were already the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. And that was already a crime. But somehow it hasn't occured to us in Libochovice that there was a Gestapo and so on... We only found out later. The broadcast began with a Beethoven symphony. I remember Jan Masaryk reporting for us. The neighbors were all sitting there. And it was life-threatening."
Jaroslava Stará, a single Rašková, was born on February 17, 1936 in Louny. Her mother died after giving birth, later her father remarried and moved to Libochovice near Litoměřice with the young Jaroslava and her older second daughter Alena. She graduated from a pedagogical grammar school in Teplice, then taught for a total of 21 years at a small school in the nearby village of Klapý below Hazmburk Castle. While working, she graduated from the Faculty of Education in Prague and then moved to work in a special school in Libochovice, where, in addition to teaching, she worked as a director. In April 1986, she was to go on a trip to the Soviet Union to Leningrad (today‘s St. Petersburg), but the trip was cancelled due to the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. She retired in 1994. She participated in the restoration of the Jewish cemetery near Terezín. He now lives in a home for the elderly in Libochovice.
Jan Sytař, Daniela Váchová, Alžběta Laubová, Kateřina Krajčovičová, Štěpánka Suchá, Michaela Červenková pod pedagogickým vedením Jitky Hajné ze ZŠ J. E. Purkyně v Libochovicích
