Hana Krejčová

* 1964

  • "That people will come to their senses, that they will realize that this is wrong, that this is not the way to plunder the Earth. Moreover, I realized that we are inferior people here in Most. We had something around here that shaped our souls. The only thing worthwhile in a human being is his or her soul. If it doesn't feed on beauty, it will spoil and die. That's the most important thing you have to do, to feed and keep your soul healthy. And here (in Most), the souls were getting a beating. Let me give you an example: I had a boyfriend. He came from Prague, he regularly traveled to Germany and to Most to see me. I admit that I was proud of Most and I thought it was a city of roses with beautiful architecture. I was fooled by the propaganda. My friend asked me if I was serious. When I said yes, he asked if I saw the dirt around and if I saw the pipes everywhere. And I didn't see the pipes, I didn't know that the pipes that go around the road have no place in nature, I didn't notice the different structures and concrete buildings. It opened my eyes that this is not normal, that we from Most or Ústí region take it as a norm. Mess, dirt, mud. When you are born in it, you see it as normal. People here have twisted souls, they don't see the beautiful."

  • "I was lucky that I studied the Czech language and Music education. There were fifteen of us. They put teachers who were naughty off there. Especially in Ústí nad Labem, professors went there as a form of punishment. That was a bonus for us. I got to know incredible personalities there, for example, Zoya Hauptová for Old Slavonic, who wrote lectures and textbooks. And Professor Machovský. People who had problems with the regime. Mrs. Haupt, when she came in, lit a cigarette, introduced herself, and said she was going to teach us Old Slavonic. Then she added that she believed in God and that we could tell everyone because no one else at the school is able to teach Old Slavonic. She threw a classmate out of the exam because he said he believed in Darwin's theory that man came from an ape. Those professors were opening our eyes, hinting and showing us things. Our group initially ignored the Marxism-Leninism seminars. That was followed by a reprimand from the department head who told us we couldn't do that. It was clear which side he was on. But some people showed us the way and that's where I changed a lot."

  • "Paradoxically, we can now destroy Jezeří. Destroy it with ill-advised repairs. And that would be worse than leaving it as it was. Still, even if it doesn't have all the windows, it still has the power of testimony. I'm more worried about the fate of the Jezeří Chateau now. The more it becomes known, the more money goes in, and I dare not say that the restoration will be of better quality and more gentle, that it will respect the personality and essence of the building. It seems to me that the fight for Jezeří is just beginning. Jezeří has strength in that it has not been restored, it has retained a lot of authenticity. And so you can observe it as the last owners did. You see the history there, both wartime and post-war periods, and you can touch it."

  • "You couldn't see the chateau, there was nothing there. It was overgrown. It was unusable as such. People lived in a little house by the gate. You wouldn't even know there was a path to the garden. There was no garden because it was overgrown with trees. The chateau had no windows, nothing. There was about a metre of clutter. The whole castle was very messy. When I went in, they told me to do what I wanted with it. All I had to do was show it. I don't think anybody had any hope that there would ever be furniture in there. I was supposed to show people what it looked like and that was it. But I didn't see it that way. I knew from the beginning that I had to stomp it out, that I owed it to my grandmother and my ancestors. I didn't see it as the castle being a heritage site owned by the state. It was Jezeří and so it was ours. If I thought differently, Jezeří would never be open to visitors in my lifetime."

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    Ústí nad Labem, 27.02.2023

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The people of Most had a twisted soul

Hana Krejčová, née Čapková, Albrechtice, 1966
Hana Krejčová, née Čapková, Albrechtice, 1966
zdroj: Hana Krejčová’s personal archive

Hana Krejčová, née Čapková, was born on 12 April 1964 in Albrechtice, Most region. She spent her childhood in a small village at the foot of the Krušné Mountains under the Jezeří Chateau. In 1983, Albrechtice disappeared due to coal mining. At that time she lived with her mother in Most, where she studied at the local grammar school. She continued her studies at the Faculty of Education of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, where she studied Czech language and music education. She sang in the choir at the Opera and Ballet Theatre in Ústí nad Labem. Until the time of her studies at the university, she considered the government of the Communist Party to be beneficial. At university, however, she met classmates who aroused in her a change of opinion. After graduating from university, she married Miloš Krejča, then director of the North Bohemian Theatre in Ústí nad Labem. In the 1990s she starred in the musical Les Miserables in Prague. In 1996, she accepted an offer to become a castellan at Jezeří Castle near Most. Symbolically, she returned to the places of her childhood. She saved the chateau from destruction. She defended the ecological limits of coal mining, which, among other things, protected the castle and the village of Horní Jiřetín. She was therefore often at odds with the prospectors and miners. Hana Krejčová was a castellan at Jezeří in 2023, and during her tenure, the monument became the most visited in the Ústí nad Labem region.