In November 1989, militiamen in Tatra Smíchov sew batons to use against demonstrators
Marie Veberová, née Zelinková, was born on July 26, 1946 in Prague as the only child of Marie and Augustin Zelinková. Her father worked as a stove fitter. Marie comes from Smíchov, which was a working-class neighborhood in her childhood. In 1964, she graduated from a secondary technical school, then joined the company Tatra Smíchov, where she worked almost her entire life. In 1968, she married a colleague from work, Zdenek Veber, whose family was persecuted by the communist regime. They raised a son. Marie never joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), even though she knew she could benefit from it. Her workplace relationships in the 1970s and 1980s were marked by totalitarianism, profiteering and envy. She was interrogated by the State Security (StB) because she was earning extra money from a part-time job. At the time of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, she saw batons being filled with sand in the upholstery workshop in Tatra Smíchov in order to be used against protesters. At retirement age, she studied at the University of the Third Age and worked until the age of 73 years. In 2023, she lived in Prague.