Růžena Jírová

* 1933

  • „... So the interrogation was coming to an end. That one secret police officer, a devil through and through, said to me: 'Young lady, will you have another coffee with me?' And I told him that I had already had three. He said I wouldn’t have to worry, that it's not poisoned. I told him I knew they had other ways than giving people poisoned coffee. Towards the end of the interrogation, the young boy said that he thought that if he had asked for my cooperation, that it would not have mattered. I told him that he was really intelligent and that I thanked him. They told everyone about the cooperation. So this was an honor for me.“

  • „When they put him behind bars it was good. But before they locked him up, I was worried about him. In Russia, they were just showing how they arrested people who went to Red Square to protest against the entry of their troops. There was a boy with glasses like our Ivan had, and they smashed them. I was afraid that Ivan's glasses would break. And then I got the notification that he was locked up, and I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he was alive. It's like the thing from the Bible: 'One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.'“

  • „They didn't warn me in advance. They came to my house and pulled me out. It was at a time when Ivan was locked up. I refused to go anywhere with them. Acquaintances instructed me on how to behave during interrogation, that's what the Chartists did. So I told them that I won't go anywhere with them because I have a locked up son and I won't say anything about him. They say that's not the point at all. They acted like they didn't know my son was locked up. The interrogation was really about something completely different...“

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    Cheb, 20.09.2022

    (audio)
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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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I was better off than the members of the secret police that everyone was afraid of

The witness in her 40s
The witness in her 40s
zdroj: witness's archive

Růžena Jírová, née Kubašková, was born on September 6, 1933 in Kralupy nad Vltavou. Her father František Kubaška was a font painter and ran a shop, her mother Růžena was a business school graduate and worked as an accountant. Růžena had a brother František who was a year younger. She lived through the war in Kralupy nad Vltavou, in 1945 she survived one of the largest raids in Bohemia in a cellar. After the communist coup in 1948, the communists took away the father‘s business, nationalized his business and took away the family‘s two-story house. Since then, the Kubaškas faced an unbearable housing crisis. After graduating from the municipal school in 1948, Růžena applied to a high school of graphics in Prague, but was not accepted. She attended courses for workers at a high school of applied arts and in 1951 she started her studies at the the Academy of Applied Arts with prof. J. Novak. However, she had to quit school after three years due to pregnancy. In 1954, her son Ivan was born. The marriage with artist Luďek Maňásk was not a happy one and ended in divorce after three years. In 1963, Růžena moved with her nine-year-old son to Cheb, where there was a better chance of getting a more dignified home. She worked in the cultural center in Cheb as an artist. Because she was deeply religious, she established friendships with people from church circles. In 1977, her son Ivan Maňásek signed Charter 77 and continued to cooperate with dissent, for which he was sentenced to imprisonment. Růžena tried to get the StB to cooperate, which she failed to do. The witness did not even sign the so-called anti-charter, for which premiums were cut from her salary. She considers the ten years of experience as the most beautiful years of her life, when she worked as a volunteer in a hospital for long-term patients already at retirement age. She acted here as spiritual support for the dying. Růžena Jírová was married twice, the second time to producer and founder of film clubs Jan Jíra.