Losing a friend was the worst experience of the whole war
Stáhnout obrázek
Libuše Hlinovská was born on 23 January 1929 in Pilsen to Klára Černá, née Ságnerová, and Václav Černý. Her father worked at the Weissberger Bronze Works, her mother as a teacher of handicrafts. Both parents were culturally active, the family lived in a larger villa where artists, writers and painters gathered. Her father was a member of the Sokol and the Pošumavská jednota, her mother was also a Sokol member and ran a Czech library. After the annexation of Kozolupy to the Sudetenland, the family moved depending on where the Weissberger factory was located. First they moved to Pilsen and then via Prague to Roztoky. During the war Libuše Hlinovská studied at the Grammar School in Prague 19. During the Prague Uprising her father kept regular patrols to defend Roztoky from the retreating Germans. Her close friend Miloslav Vraštil lost his life on the train that was sent to help Prague during the Uprising. After the war, she graduated from the Faculty of Education and Philosophy, majoring in PE and English, and taught from 1952 until her retirement. Throughout her life, she was also involved in gymnastics as a coach and referee, and always went above and beyond the call of duty for her pupils. Thanks to her dedication to working with children and the fact that there were few modern gymnastics instructors, she was able to teach even though she never joined the Communist Party. After the occupation in August 1968, she passed the normalisation checks but had to be careful in teaching English. It was only after November 1989 that she was able to teach freely. In 2025 Libuše Hlinovská had two children, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren and lived in Ústí na Labem.