Ivana Kettnerová

* 1951

  • "My father experienced a hard time in prison. When 1989 approached, his health did not allow him any further activity. I know that in 1989, when students were touring the cities around the Czech Republic, my parents were also visited by some students from Prague. And they shared their story with them. We all welcomed the year 1989 with enthusiasm. After graduating from the secondary school, I went to Prague and got married. So I had first-hand experience of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. We used to go to Wenceslas Square and I took my children, who were eleven and thirteen years old, to experience the atmosphere. That was an unforgettable time. And I'm happy my father lived to see it. He was promoted to retired Colonel and he was fully rehabilitated. I am really thankful that he got to experience that, because he passed away in 1997."

  • "My father was in the Bory prison in Pilsen from 12 June 1949 until May 1950. He worked there. They were shredding feathers there for days. He told me that when they didn't meet the daily quota, they got less food. He was put in solitary confinement. But it wasn't a solitary confinement for one person, there were eight of them. They had four straws mattresses on the floor so they had to share them. And apparently that's how he got ill with tuberculosis. He was seriously ill from May 1950. He was transferred to the Bory hospital, where there was a pulmonary ward for prisoners on a top floor. And in this difficult time, it turned out that there were also good and brave people. When my father was escorted by a guard to the hospital for examination, a patient from Kralovice, who knew our family well, recognized him and told my mother that she saw my father in the Bory hospital. And then Dr. Kubík from the pulmonary department arranged for my mother to see my father several times in his office. My mother came there as a patient through one entrance and my father was brought to the ambulance by a guard who had to stay outside the office. Dr. Kubík thus allowed my parents to meet several times. He must have been a terribly brave man, because had it been revealed, he would certainly have been punished. And so it happened that I was born on 14 June 1951, two years after my father's arrest."

  • "It was a big shock for my mother, and for everybody else, because my father didn't do anything. They didn't know why he was arrested. He was taken to pre-trial detention in Pankrác in Prague, where he spent three months. There he learnt about his alleged anti-state group involvement. Another member of the group was Antonín Vinš, a teacher from Kralovice, whom he met once and who offered to get him back into the air force. Apart from him, he did not know anyone else from the group he was tried with. He was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labour and he was transferred to the Bory prison in Pilsen."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Plzeň, 18.08.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:09:55
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

My father coped with injustice thanks to his faith

Ivana Kettnerová as a little girl, 1945
Ivana Kettnerová as a little girl, 1945
zdroj: Archiv pamětnice

Ivana Kettnerová was born on 14 June 1951 in Pardubice as a daughter of a political prisoner. Her father Václav Vondrovic graduated from the Military Air Academy in Hradec Králové in June 1948, but was discharged from the army after February 1948. On 10 March 1949, he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in Pankrác in Prague for his fictitious involvement in an anti-state group. On 12 June 1949 he was imprisoned in Bory prison, where he got ill with tuberculosis and was transferred to the Bory hospital. Then he was transferred to the prisons in Valdice and in Ročov u Loun, where he saw his two-year-old daughter for the first time. He spent most of his imprisonment in Mírov, from August 1953 until 10 May 1960, when a great amnesty was announced. After coming out of prison, he worked in a shop, then as a warehouseman at ČSAD (Czechoslovak State Automobile Transport), later as a dispatcher of passenger and freight transport there. After November 1989 he was promoted to retired Colonel and fully rehabilitated. He died in 1997. His daughter Ivana graduated from the Secondary School of Economics in Rakovník and then worked in various companies as an accountant. On 8 August 1975 she married in Prague, where she later raised three children. She participated in the demonstrations in November 1989. After retiring, she returned to Kralovice.