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The Mayor
Mrs. F’s house is near the center of this quaint village. The door is flanked open by a smiling middle aged woman, welcoming me warmly and leading me to a large light kitchen. A cross decorates the wall opposite the door. As we enter the kitchen, Mrs. F. tells me her husband is going to be with us while we talk.
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The Nasty Grandmother
Mrs. L. lives in a Moravian industrial city considered for decades the steel heart of the country, a dirty and inhospitable place. In the post-communist era it has 23% unemployment rate by some estimates, and a strong communist base, still an active party in the Czech Republic. During the short taxi ride from the train station to the hotel […]
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The next horror came, when we were looking for a doctor to take care of our mother
In 1951, my parents Bedřich and Jarmila Koller, and my seventeen year old sister were factory workers in Uherský Brod. We, the two younger sisters, Jarmila and Věra were still in elementary school. Our father was a member of the National Socialist Party, not to be confused with the German Nazi party, that was not popular with the Communists. That is why, […]
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Two Sisters – Miss S.
Looking for Miss S’s home with a pharmacy sign among the two storied houses painted with pastel colors makes me feel as if I am transferred to a world that I only read about in old Czech novels. I am imagining her father opening his pharmacy’s door in the mornings many years ago. Then most of the town people, that passed his house, […]
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The Director’s Daughter
When I searched for daughters of political prisoners, willing to talk about their experiences, one of the criteria was age 5—12 during the 1950s. Mrs. K. responded with a letter stating, “… I would like to participate even though I am older than the requested elementary school age. My father was imprisoned for 5 years from 1949 to 1954 in Leopoldov, Ruzyn, at the end in […]
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Everybody is responsible for one’s luck, but totalitarians are responsible for misfortune of others.
Or — every story has its prologue. The story of our family, persecuted during the communist era, is like a story of thousands of individuals and their families. The prologue of those family tragedies goes back to the 1930s when our future communist president Gottwald said in the Parliament, „ We Communists go to Moscow to learn how to break […]
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The Girl from Prague
When Mrs. M. mentions that she is nervous about the interview, I tell her that I share her feelings because she is the first of the respondents I am interviewing. I suggest starting with her childhood memories. It is now 10 a.m. Her father was arrested when she was four. She admits not remembering the time surrounding his arrest, only, […]
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From the Farewell Letter
My beloved mother, my dear children (his wife, father and brothers were in prison at the time, being tortured by interrogators), On 1/29/1955 the Supreme Court sentenced me to death. My dear mother, my dear children, I think about you all the time. I think about Lidunka (his wife), dad and my brothers. I love you all more than […]
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Fairytale Story
When Mrs. O. arrives at the hotel, she orders salad with a comment, “I’ve got to lose some weight.” She suggests she will begin with her childhood, informing me “What I am going to tell you is what I heard from my grandma. I don’t remember because I was a baby when my dad, as a forester, found a wounded man who was shot by […]
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The Traveler
The chance to meet Mrs. V. has been uncertain from the beginning. She has retuned from visiting her son and daughter in the U.S. two days ago; they emigrated after the fall of communism. Over the phone, she let me know that she could talk to me only for one hour. She had too much work after […]
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we are the daughters of political prisoners from the 1950s
Some of us participated in research on the psychological effects on children in families persecuted by the communist regime. There were originally twelve of us (in 1999). Thus a group of women was formed, which has grown over time to sixty members (2008). We meet twice a year, and many of us have become friends.
Latest Posts
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Red Executor’s Daughter — her pain and her generosity
Prosecutor Karel Vas is known as the Red Executor. He sent innocent people to the gallows in communist Czechoslovakia during the 1950s.