Helena Němcová

* 1937

  • "My dad was a judge, and in the 1950s it worked in such a way that certain accused people had pre-sentences and pre-prepared defenses. And the judge got the verdict without even starting his own hearing, and he was bound and had to pronounce the verdict like that. And if he didn't declare him like that, he was out of luck. Well, my dad didn't declare him like that. At that time, Mr. Čepička was the Minister of Justice, and it happened that my father went to build the Branica Bridge for this, it was then called the Bridge of Intelligence. And when they finished the bridge, in the year 1954 they were moved to Strakonice, where the bridge was being built, and there were floods. Well, in Strakonice on that bridge, my father was doing some rescue work, we never really found out, but he got killed there."

  • "Actually, until 1968, it was perhaps two years before that, and then before they were banned completely, they did shows in the Art Talk called Chanson 66, 67, 68... And the journalist Petránek, Ljuba Hermannová, a lot of of people who... Well, it was such a composed show, my husband was there making such fairy tales for adults. And the Art Talk was always scattered, because people there had the feeling that there was always something at least half-spoken against the regime. It's true that it ran quite smoothly until the end of the 1960s, and then they banned it. Then the husband, because at that time he was also employed in those Medicinal plants factory, let it be said truly that he stole the stamp of the company committee there, he used that stamp to stamp a piece of paper for this show. Well, they went out using it about twice, and the third time the state security found out about it and it was bad."

  • "I have a very vivid memory of this (note: February 1948). Of course, I will not say the word that my father said that time. My dad never said a dirty word in his life, at least I don't remember. But I remember that there was a radio broadcast from the Old Town Square, we were listening to it, and Gottwald's now winged line 'I have just returned from the Castle' was heard there. And my dad then, for the first and last time in his life, expressed himself very forcefully about the whole thing, that it would just be terrible like this, even though he said it completely differently, and right he was."

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Praha - Zbraslav, 23.10.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 01:47:54
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

People should act according to their best knowledge and conscience

Helena Němcová
Helena Němcová
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Helena Němcová, née Fraňková, was born on November 20, 1937. She lived with her sister and parents in the family villa in Zbraslav. In May 1945, they had to hide in the cellar. The whole family was badly affected by the communist coup in February 1948. The grandfather, who had a tinsmith workshop in Anděl and employed three people, was declared an exploiter, and his workshop was nationalized. The second grandfather lost his job as Senate President of the Supreme Administrative Court because the Communists abolished the administrative courts. The father, who as a judge of the district court in Zbraslav in the 1950s dared not to announce a pre-arranged sentence against a defendant in a political trial, had to go to the construction of the Bridge of Intelligence in Branice and in 1954 to Strakonice, where he died under unclear circumstances on the construction site. Helena Němcová was not allowed to study. After high school, she worked, for example, as an accountant at the Institute for Ore Research in Bráník or at the Regional Cultural Center of the Central Bohemian Region, and completed her university education remotely in the evenings. The occupation by the troops of the Warsaw Pact found her and her children in Litvínov with friends. In 1970, she signed a 2,000-word petition and refused to denounce her supervisor, which cost her her job. She wrote samizdat books, her husband published the anti-regime Young Front with others. She and her husband were repeatedly interrogated by the StB because of the falsified permission to go out to perform with the theater show Shanson. In November 1989, she participated in demonstrations on Národní třída and Letná. After the revolution, she worked as a secretary of the Zbraslav Municipal Office. Today, she lives in Zbraslav, writes songs for children, has published five books and has been involved in amateur theater all her life.