• One memory – one life

    I would like to show how one memory in life might become the meaning of life.  It was Christmas 1951 in Prague when my father was arrested and imprisoned.  I was born two moths premature in February 1952. After spending three month in hospital in incubator with lung infection, my mother has taken me to her mother, my grandma in Ceske […]

  • 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 […]

  • Daddy’s Defender

    After Mrs. H. read about this inquiry in the political prisoners organization’s newsletter, she offered to participate with a letter that reflected her skepticism on anyone willing to hear their voice. In her opinion, few parents who have a daughter of the required age for this study are still alive. Only a few widows and their daughters are members of the […]

  • Stalin – my temporary father

    When I was in first grade, I saw a photograph of a girl who looked to be about seven. She had blond curly hair and Stalin was holding her next to him, dressed in his generalissimo uniform, with many medals on his chest.

  • 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 […]

  • Politician’s Mom

    This interview takes place in one of Prague’s most famous cafés.  Mrs. D. and I find a place away from the window tables occupied by tourists, speaking many different languages.  I remember the times of my youth here.  During the years of Stalinism, one would turn when hearing someone speaking a foreign language.  Now it is almost the reverse.

  • 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, […]

  • They Called her a Kulak

    Mrs. G. waits for me at the railway station of her beautifully renovated holiday resort town. We agreed that I would recognize her by a white envelope in her hand. I knew about some of her experiences from her letter she sent after reading my advertisement in the newsletter. I am not sure why but I have a hard time not […]

  • 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.

  • 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 […]


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.