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One memory – one life
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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I would like to show how one memory in life might become the meaning of life.
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From the Farewell Letter
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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My beloved mother, my dear children (his wife, father and brothers were in prison at the time, being tortured by interrogators),
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Golden Star Award 2008
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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The Mother of One of Our Daughters Has Died
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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When I received a note this morning that Jana Svehlova’s mother, Mrs. Eleonora Roubik (Lola), had died, I experienced severe pain, the kind that is felt physically and emotionally. It is a pain that I felt for the mothers of all the daughters of
political
prisoners. Suddenly, I realized what our mothers, mommies, moms were capable of doing for us—during those infamous
1950s—when they had to take care of just about everything. To bring us up as ethical human beings, to feed us, to clothe us, but not
just that—they had to make sure we would not forget our fathers who were in prisons…Often, we did not show our mothers much gratitude. As daughters, perhaps we felt closer to our fathers. But we better not forget that the fundamental care we received was from our mothers.
I am sorry that I met Mrs. Roubik only last year, even though I knew about her from talks with a friend already in the mid-1980s. She was a woman with a strong will, a sense of humor, and a love for knowledge. I think she was a very good mother to Jana Svehlova. I am drinking to her with white wine from the Rhine Valley. I hope that, from wherever she is, she is smiling back at me.
Writer: Zuzana Vittvarova
Translation: Jana Svehlova
Editing: JoAnn M. Cooper
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Letter e-mailed to the Editor: The New York Times
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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“Memo From Prague — 3 Czech Friends, Cast as Heroes and as Murderers” by Dan Bilefsky (June 2, 2008)
And what about those left behind?
by Jana Svehlova
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Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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June 3rd, 2008, Prague, Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic
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The next horror came, when we were looking for a doctor to take care of our mother
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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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, during the school summer holiday in 1951, men in leather coats came to our home (they must have inherited the coats from the Gestapo) and walked away with our father. Their excuse was that they needed some information from dad. They arrested other members of that party in our town as well.
The next morning, our mother and sister were not allowed to enter the factory. The doorman announced to them that their work contract was abolished. Not one of the factory bosses had the courage to explain to our mother the reason she could not work there anymore.
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After her arrest, Miluška Havlůjová did not see her baby for 2 years
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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Miluška Havlůjová (Pomplová) was born into a patriotic Czech family in 1929. She was a fashion model and she also worked as an office clerk. Her parents joined the resistance movement in their area of Rožmitál pod Třemšínem during the WWII German occupation of Czechoslovakia. Her mother was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944, but miraculously survived in the Terezienstadt fortress. Her father managed to hide until the end of WWII.
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Hana´s Christmas Wish
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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Everybody is responsible for one’s luck, but totalitarians are responsible for misfortune of others.
- Category: The Daughters' Stories
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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 your neck. “