Ludmila Klinkovská

* 1929

  • "When my father got shot, I know it was a shock for all of us. And on top of that, we weren't even allowed to see him. My mother, as I say secretly, had already seen him shot... So it wasn't an easy time."

  • "My dad got shot, so I had to leave for an hour. They called me to the office and told me to leave the workplace immediately, so I came back, started to pick up my pencils, and my boss, Mr. Pastyřík, said, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'Well, I'm going home. They told me at the personnel office that I had to leave the building immediately. I'm simply not allowed to be employed as a correspondent anymore.' And they put me in the factory at the drilling machine..."

  • "Two men came and said they were friends of my father's from Prague and came to visit him. 'Well, come in,' I said. 'No, no, we'll wait for him here on the sidewalk.' And there was this wall on the sidewalk, and they were sitting on it, and I sat down across from them, and one of the guys either unintentionally or actually maybe intentionally put his hand on his hip, and I found out he had a gun there. So I ran over to my mom and said, 'Mom, these are no friends. They are probably State Security because one has a gun on his belt.' So my mother said, 'Jesus, hurry up, open the windows, we'll put the blankets in the window.' So she did, and my dad, when he walked across the bridge and saw the blankets, of course, they agreed. So he didn't go home anymore, but he walked over here and saw me sitting on the sidewalk with those two."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Zlín, 09.03.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:15:57
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
  • 2

    Zlín, 17.04.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 56:37
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

When my dad was shot, I had to leave work for an hour

Ludmila Klinkovská, 1947
Ludmila Klinkovská, 1947
zdroj: witness archive

Ludmila Klinkovská, née Hovorková, was born on 17 April 1929 in Olomouc. She came from the family of the anti-Nazi and anti-communist resistance fighter Štěpán Hovorka and Eugenie Ederová. She was born in the Olomouc barracks, where her father worked as an armorer in the rank of staff sergeant in the Czechoslovak army. She lived most of her life in Zlín, where her Viennese grandparents, Marie and Albín Eder, built a generous villa on Na Výsluní Street. She graduated from the Masaryk Experimental School, followed up with two years of family school, and eventually became a correspondent in the Zlín branch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baťa‘s Villa. From 1948 her father was active in the anti-communist resistance - he set up and manned two dead drops in the then Gottwaldov and was in personal contact with the courier Štěpán Gavenda. From 1 August 1949, when Gavenda got arrested at Prague Central Station, he went into hiding and, on 1 December 1949, was shot dead by State Security officers during a shootout in his hometown of Pečky. The police did not officially inform the family of Štěpán Hovorka‘s death until six months after he was shot, only by sending a death certificate. Ludmila and her husband Ljuboš Klinkovský lost their jobs, as did Ludmila‘s older sister Maria Čachová and her husband Jan. For several years, they faced difficulties, and both husbands of Štěpán Hovorka‘s daughters could for some time only work as laborers. For a big part of her life, she worked in a TV repair dispatching center in Zlín. Persecution in the form of denial of the right to a preferred university education was also inflicted on Štěpán Hovorka‘s two granddaughters, Ylona and Eva. After 1989, Ludmila Klinkovská applied for her father‘s rehabilitation, and in 2014 he was recognized for his participation in the anti-communist resistance. At the time of filming (2023), the witness lived in the family villa in Zlín.