Antonie Hájková

* 1935

  • "It was beautiful and it's unforgettable, and when they cancelled it, I was on Hlávek Bridge, where the main scouting centre was located, so I went there and cried. And so I blamed them in my mind for taking the nice stuff away from us."

  • "Well, I'm saying - God forbid for today. Because it's the quietest time in my life. Because I was born before the war, there was a war, after the war communism grew big again, right. There was still something that the situation forced people to do somewhere. Because even though I did, I worked in the factory and so on, there was a master, a comrade, and she was terrible, still talking about the meetings, this and that... That was, you know... now no one is forcing you to do anything, you do whatever you want. Now people need to appreciate that having this kind of freedom. Even if someone says there is a lack of this or that. My God, there are so many things missing, of course, but the important thing is, that there is freedom of speech."

  • "I don't like any crowd meetings. Why would I? Because before, when a visitor came here to the former Czechoslovakia, we had to go, even as a teacher with children, we had to welcome them to the European avenue, go there and there stood many students from schools on both sides of the road, it just had to be done."

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    Dobřichovice, 16.03.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 38:55
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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When the Boy Scouts were cancelled, I cried

Antonie Hájková, née Farářová, was born in March 1935 in Jenč near Prague. During the Second World War, her father was fully deployed, and she lived with her mother at their relatives. She remembers the fear of air raids and the violent behaviour of Red Army soldiers during the liberation. After the war, little Antonia went to the Scout for two years, then it was banned. To this day, she regrets that she was unable to spend more time in the group due to the regime. She trained as a seamstress in Klatovy and later graduated in industrial clothing in Prostějov. But her lifelong dream was to teach, which eventually came true. She remembers the August occupation of 1968, which she experienced in Prague, as well as the days of the Velvet Revolution.