Marie Mannová

* 1944

  • Revenge of local officials “During the first week of school when everything had been closed and we were at the hops harvest, there were supposedly turbulent meetings where people were arguing whether or not to allow me to study at the school. At last, they came to inform my parent by word of mouth that I was not admitted to the school and that they for good reversed the original decision that the principal had in his hand, that I was admitted. It was the end because everything had been closed, (I mean) all the admissions because it was the beginning of the school year. My father and mother started writing letters, which I kept in a bulky envelope. They wrote to Local National Committee where they did not want to talk to them at all. They wrote a letter to my parents. My father wanted to make a deal with them, so he asked them to meet him, to invite him to their meeting and to explain to him what offences he had committed because he did not know about any. So that I did not suffer because of him because I was not guilty of anything as his child. However, they told him that the selection to the ninth grade had been closed, that there was no place and therefore there was no reason to meet him and talk to him. That it was not necessary. They terminated it like this. My parents then wrote to a district office, to a regional office, to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, to the Presidential Office, well, it makes up a bulky envelope. For example, the Central Committee did not respond at all, the Presidential Office – I think that Zátopek was President at that time – responded that it did not come under their competence – and so on and so on. That year – so that I was not unemployed – because when one finished the eighth grade, they either had to study or work or study at a vocational school – I tried hard. I went to a typewriting course at Business School in Chrudim, I studied shorthand and I also have not mentioned that I played the piano for many years. At first, I had private lessons and then attended People´s School of Art, back then it was a music school, so I kept doing that and I also had private lessons of languages. (I studied) German, English and French. It took a year and then when the period of admissions, well not admissions but the period of applications came, I applied for an eleven-year school in Přelouč, the School of Agriculture in Pardubice and to make sure also for a vocational school in Tesla (company) in Přelouč. Nothing turned out well because of the same reasons. The situation repeated and it was critical.”

  • “The school ended, I passed my final exams with flying colours and before it in March, we had applied to continue in the ninth grade and then to continue at an eleven-year school which had been established in Městec. So, I applied in March. Then the exams took place, and I was said I had not been included in the ninth grade and that I had not been chosen. The current principal was surprised because he had all the applicants confirmed by the local national committee, including me, so all this time I thought that I would go to ninth grade, continue at the eleven-year school and then probably go to university. Because I wanted to... I did not care about the fact I did not like maths. Once I got a book about Mars for Christmas and that is why I said I wanted to be an astronomer. It was one of my wishes. Then we visited a circus, I loved the circus and there was a young girl, how old might have she been? Fifteen? She was practising on the trapeze, and I was so into it that I wanted to be an artist. And that I wanted to ride in a circus caravan, that I wanted to be an artist, and I pushed it so that if my father ever went to the pub for a beer, they were already welcoming him: 'Mr Berousek!' The Berouseks, that was a well-known name. Then I got over it. However, I really wanted to study, and my father wished for it very much. After it, when it ended up like this, I mean when I was admitted and then again not admitted, my father wrote an appeal to a school committee and the principal started to fight for me, so he succeeded, and they admitted me to the school. Of course, the principal was scolded because of it, and I was invited to go away with other students. We went to hops harvest somewhere near Žatec and my furious dad appeared there a week later and (told me) to pack up and that we were going home. I was wondering why we were going home. ‘You were not admitted to the school. They expelled you again.‘”

  • “On the one hand, my childhood was affected by the fact that my father - and I really appreciate his attitude - was high-principled, but we will get to that. But he had his ideals, his ideas and those were set in stone. And it was incredibly hard to keep them in the 1950s. It was not possible for me to join Pioneer. Everyone joined it but my parents would not take it, it simply was not possible. So, that was also something that distinguished me, but it was also because I was Brychová. I mean because of my name. I do not know why it was like that, but it was because of my father´s categorical approach to the regime and so on. Later, when self-employed people were supposed to join unions, he refused and did not join them. He would never join it, the union. It was not called a union; unions were in the countryside. This - it was municipal. Well, he did not join it, he had principles that he lived by all his life and continued to live by. And then it manifested itself, we will get to that, that they took revenge on me. So, now about the school. I remember that we had various... Everything copied the Soviet Union. I heard something else at home and at school, so it was childhood like that. And bans: ‘You cannot say that.‘ Our parents had many friends who had the same beliefs and they somehow surrendered. Some to survive, some because of profit-seeking motives. It was not our case. We had to do everything the way our parents thought was correct. However, I really appreciate that my father did not give up.”

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    V Heřmanové Městci, 24.11.2021

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You cannot say outside what you say at home

Marie Mannová in 1987
Marie Mannová in 1987
zdroj: witness´s archive

Marie Mannová, née Brychová was born on 26 January 1944 in Heřmanův Městec. Her father František Brych was a well-known local cabinetmaker, and he was famous for his work also far from the region. He was active in the Sokol movement, wrote a chronicle for the Sokol Music department for many years, and played several musical instruments in the Sokol band. Witness´s mother Marie Brychová, née Hovorková graduated from a two-year business school, she did bookkeeping for her husband and helped him design woodwork products. They were both active in the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. Her parents lived according to Masaryk’s ideas and values of the First Republic, and they raised their children in the same way. Their first-born daughter Vlasta died at the tender age of eighteen and her parents became attached to Marie who was born after her death. Political changes after February 1948 fundamentally influenced the life of the Brych family. Her father refused to give up his personal business and stayed self-employed despite the pressure and threats from local Communist officials. Moreover, he had a disagreement with his neighbour - a Communist and house searches and a people´s tribunal followed a denunciation. The father was not broken even by the above-mentioned sentence, he never gave up his resistance to the regime. The comrades in the town took revenge on his daughter - the top student in her class. After elementary school, Marie was at first allowed but then denied to study at secondary school at the last minute. She had to spend a year at home and attend various private courses. She applied once more a year later, however, the situation repeated. She was not even allowed to study at a vocational school. She was vainly trying to get admitted to the Theological Faculty of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. She gave up after two years of desperate attempts and applied for work - she was offered manual work with adhesives and chemicals in the Botana factory. Her parents managed to find her a better job at Sempra Cultivation company. As a blue-collar worker, she was allowed to study at and graduate from the Secondary Technical School of Agriculture in Krč, Prague. She returned to Sempra when she passed her Secondary school-leaving exam. She got married to Jan Mann and they raised two children together. She gave her notice after sixteen years in Sempra and she worked for Vodní stavby (Water constructions) for thirteen years. Her book Heřmanův Městec - a town of many professions and important personalities was published in 2020.