"Basically, before I came to Vysočina, I did this [hospice care] in my free time as a leisure activity. I accompanied people in the various ways and I knew it made sense. And my sister, who dealt with it a lot, also helped me a lot. And in the hospital in Bruntál, the Škrls worked, who really tried - they called it a 'hospital without walls'. It was perhaps the only hospital where I knew that when they let someone go home, they had verified that someone would be at home, that they knew how to take care of them. That the man is accompanied, that the supervision is there. I really liked that. Krista [my sister] tried so that the dying person, mostly the ones suffering from cancer could die at home in peace, so that they would have sufficient care and everything. Although she also died of cancer and died in Brno in Žluťák, because the transport home was no longer possible there."
"That year 1997, it was Moravia. In retrospect, it was such a matter of the heart. It was so spontaneous, so amazing… Although a lot of mistakes must have been made, it was visible that people work with their whole heart. Eventually, my sister, who worked in the surgery in Bruntál, called me to say that they had a lady who was left only with the apron she was wearing. That her mother is at the parish in the village where it happened, that she will go home in a while and that at least to give something for them. So, we started by putting together the specific things they needed. Then we were visiting Široká Niva for about two years. At first it was every fortnight, then it got longer and the mother of this lady was over eighty at the time and she just sat and cried. Perhaps for more than half a year she had spoken for the first time and told us that she did not want to leave the house, that a tractor came for them there too, and she refused, and in the end, they spent the night on the chimney on the roof. Absolutely crazy things. There, I saw how important it is to give people time, so they are able to talk about it."
"Then, when Vojta was born on April 25, [1988] and I was in the maternity hospital again on the first of May, it was very uncomfortable because my husband came to visit me and said he did not know if he would come next time because our two police officers were there. The State Security officers Mařík and Pokoj, ie Mařík and Sedláček. There were [a total of] three: Mařík, Sedláček and Pokoj. And that they said they wanted him in CPZ (a pre-trial detention cell). Honza was arrested all the May days, all the May public holidays. And I say, "What about Lucka?" Lucka will be placed in the home care institution. That´s how you are thinking two days after giving birth. I was hysterical, I got a fever. In the end, I agreed that if it was bad, he would let me go. It was three days after giving birth. And Honza was supposed to call me that night. He didn't call. I didn't know that the maternity ward didn't put the calls though after six in the evening. So, it was a crazy night. But the next day he came. And then, it was again on August 21, 1989, I was lying with a fever, I had a virus or something, Honza took care of the two children and the two of them came again. He was saying that what he is supposed to do with the children, that his wife is in bed, so they forced me to go to the GP to give them a certificate that I really had a fever, and they complained terribly in August about the shame I had done to them in that maternity hospital. Apparently, the whole district talked about how terrible they are. And they were so kind that they left my husband at home and didn't take him away. And I slandered them that badly."
Barbara Litomiská was born on December 2, 1953 in Opava. A multi-generational Catholic family lived in Malé Hoštice. After the creation of the Third Reich, her father Josef Hollesch, like other men in the Hlučín region, was drafted into the German army. It was a taboo that was not talked about in public or at home. The state evaluated these former soldiers according to whether they became members of the Communist Party. The witness‘s father did not join the party. Therefore, his daughters could not count on university studies. Barbara Litomiská was trained as a pharmaceutical chemist for Mr. Galen and later, while employed, she graduated from high school, the pharmacy laboratory assistant field. From a young age, she was in touch with Catholic activists, including the seriously ill Jiří Legerský, of whom she helped take care until his death at the age of thirty-four. Due to activities such as the dissemination of banned literature, they lived under the constant supervision of the State Security. In this environment, the witness also met her future husband, the chartist Jiří Litomiský, with whom she moved to Vyskytná in the Pelhřimov region. Here, too, they experienced constant state supervision until November 1989. After the Velvet Revolution and the maternity leave, Barbara Litomiská began working in the social field, where she also completed her education and obtained a bachelor‘s degree at the University of Hradec Králové in the field of social and charitable work. Since 1995, she worked as the director of the Pelhřimov Parish Charity, which she gave a professional character to, and at the same time helped to build hospice care in the Vysočina region. At the time of the interview (2021), she was retired and still lives with her husband in Vyskytná.
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