Irena Kvapilová

* 1968

  • "Actually, right from January or February 1990 a scout centre started to function, which was founded again by Tomáš Kvapil. And it started on a bit of a green field." -"Can you tell me what kind of centre it was?" "It was the 9th Jan Bosco Centre. The Girl Scout troop was led by Dana Mrtvá, who had three small children at that time. Because there was actually no experience with it, one of the Girl Scout troops, which in Scouting is led by children who are maybe fifteen years old, was led by me, I was twenty-two years old at the time. So, I got involved as a Scout counsellor, took the Scout promise at the age of twenty-two, and then we went to our first camp in Střítež in the summer. It was a very primitive camp with rented tents." - "But you've had some experience with camping." "Yes. We had experience, yes. This scout camp was in the same vein as the illegal camps. But it's completely different from today's scout camps, which already have some facilities, they have to meet some organizational and hygienic conditions. So, we were actually still able to experience that first camp in a free way. And actually right in 1990, I got married that summer and that was such a change in my life."

  • "I know we spent a longer time in Rome, we spent about three days there. I don't know exactly how it went. I certainly remember that we were there for the ceremonial mass, that we stood in St. Peter's Square." - "The service was held where?"- "In St. Peter's Basilica, but I rather think we were in that square. Whether it was all in the square, I don't know. I certainly experienced such a great sense of freedom there. We didn't have mass events like that [in Czechoslovakia – trans.]. Or they took place quite exceptionally, for example, I was at the pilgrimage in Velehrad in 1985, that was also such a strong mass action. But at Velehrad, I was a little bit thinking that every tenth person was undercover, like a member of the State Security. But here in Rome, although we also thought that these people must be going there with us, but we were surrounded by this freedom, so it was a kind of breath or euphoria."

  • "It was my first encounter with freedom, with the rich West, so we were definitely impressed. Maruška and I shared our impressions of the first gas stations together, and I remember one experience where Maruška came back on the bus and said, 'That's totally cool, they have lotions in the bathroom, you squeeze it on like this, and so I put it all over my face.' Today I know it's soap, or she found out early on too, but it was this absolute ignorance of any standards."

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    Olomouc, 10.07.2023

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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Faith under totalitarianism took little from me and offered me an awfully lot

Irena Kvapilová on her honeymoon, Bohemian Forest, 1990
Irena Kvapilová on her honeymoon, Bohemian Forest, 1990
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Irena Kvapilová was born on 15 April 1968 in Olomouc as the fourth child of Marie and Bohuslav Čedroň. She came from a religious family and never hid her faith despite the socialist persecution of religion. During her adolescence, she was shaped by a group of believing friends whom she knew from the parish of St. Moritz in Olomouc. The content of their joint activities resembled that of the scout movement. They organized secret camps and voluntary work to repair churches. From their ranks later came the founders and members of the 9th Jan Bosco Centre. Irena Kvapilová studied at the grammar school in Šternberk, later she studied computer science at the Faculty of Science of Palacký University, but did not complete her higher education. In November 1989 she attended the canonization of Agnes of Bohemia in Rome, where she travelled with Czechoslovak emigrants living in Germany. After her return, she joined several demonstrations in Prague. After the Revolution, she was briefly the leader of the Girl Scout troop of the aforementioned centre. In 1991 she married Pavel Kvapil and together they raised five children. In 2023 she lived in Olomouc and ran her own ceramics workshop.