"The period when the people's past was checked, it was very difficult time for me because there were many people in Austria who collaborated with the Czechoslovak State Security. Some people in Austria believed I was provided with the lists of people who collaborated, therefore people that participated in the democratic associations, but not those that were financially supported by Vasil Biľak, were coming to me. They were politicians, local politicians and I partly felt sorry for them. I did not have any lists but they came to confess. I did not feel comfortable in situations like those. These people they came to me, they were talking about the weather for an hour, about what they had cooked before and so on, and then they came out with their question. They asked me whether I had the lists or not. It was really difficult time for me. There were tens of those people. I could imagine now how many State Security agents had lived in Austria. I was not surprised that there had been such a people, I was rather surprised that they had been quite important people or that there were so much of them."
“In May 1989 I wrote a letter to Czechoslovak president, in which I defended professor Miroslav Kusý who was imprisoned at that time. He was imprisoned together with Ján Čarnogurský (later-member of KDH) so I defended him too. Since then I had been called “our Magduška” by them. I had never been a member of their Catholic group. Of course, I met František Mikloško (later-member of KDH), and so on. But they caused me some troubles. When Mr. Čarnogurský became Prime Minister, he and František Mikloško decided, they were going to visit Austrian president, Mr.Waldheim. The problem was that Mr. Waldheim was strongly ostracized because he had lied about his activities during WW2. The Austrian journalists, but also journalists from all around the world, were strictly following who paid him a visit. And suddenly Slovak Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament agreed to pay him one. I got a call from Jiří Dientsbier, Minister of Foreign Affairs, my boss at that time, and he said to me: ´Magda, they are going there.´ I called them, I had Mr. Čarnogurský on the phone, and I told him: ´I fundamentally protest that you go to Waldheim now, wait two months, there will be a new president.´ Then, Mr. Čarnogurský told me off, he said I am not the one to handle the situation. So, I asked my friends among the journalists that they did not report any news from this visit, except Reuters. At least I could do that. At that time, I was trying to get some money from various Jewish groups, they came to me with an idea of investing money in Slovakia because they were of a Slovak origin, but after that visit it all stopped. After two or three weeks, František Mikloško visited Vienna and I asked him why they had done it. His answer gave me a big shock. He said: ´Magduška, we went there to forgive him.´ I did not understand it. Who are they? Are they God or some tribunal, or who?”
“You know, when I married Milan Lasica in 1980, we were always monitored by State Security agents. We used to call each other in the following way: ´Please, Mr. Captain, let me speak to my husband.´ I was aware of the supervision. When I was a child, we were monitored and later in the theatre, I was, together with my colleague Milan Kňažko, permanently turned in. At that time, Mrs. Magda Paveleková was an important person within that State Security. Her husband was an important undercover officer in Military Intelligence. She always came to me and told me: ´What had you done again? I had to defend you.´ And so on. A lot of times I was sent to the office of Mr. Heger, because people turned me in about something I had said. But I must admit that when we were rehearsing together with Mr. Strnisko, we were not very careful about what we were talking about.”
Magdaléna Vašáryová was born on 26 August 1948 in the town of Banská Štiavnica. Both of her parents were teachers, her father taught Literature at the local secondary school and her mother was a German teacher. She has one sister, a famous Slovak actress Emília Vašáryová. She graduated from secondary grammar school in Bratislava and started studying Sociology at Faculty of Arts of Comenius University. After she had starred in the film Birds, Orphans and Fools (in Slovak: Vtáčkovia, siroty a blázni), she was expelled from the University. Finally, she was able to finish her studies but she could not continue working at the University. The whole period of normalization she was active as an actress, and her career was successful. In 1980, she married famous Slovak actor and lyricist Milan Lasica. During the Velvet Revolution, she was involved in the activities of the Public Against Violence and in 1990 president Václav Havel appointed her the Ambassador of Czechoslovakia to Austria. She remained in this post until 1993. After Dissolution of Czechoslovakia had taken place, she helped to establish the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA). In 1999, she was the first female candidate in the Slovak presidential election, but she did not manage to advance to the second round of voting. From 2000 to 2005 she held office of the Ambassador of Slovakia to Poland. She currently lectures in Sociology at a university in the Czech Republic.
