“I was a good friend of Jana Petrová, who helped Kocáb oust the Soviet soldiers. They said that when she came to the barracks the officers thought how they’d make short work of her. But they were this small. That girl knocked them flat, she was smart.”
“When Mr Procházka returned in the Sixties - I knew him a bit from Scouting - I saw him going - we didn’t expect him to return at all - to the graveyard. So I ran out after him and I ran to him, to greet him. And tears welled up in his eyes and he said: ‘Vlastička, almost no one greeted me, they were crossing over to the other side just to avoid greeting me, and you welcome me like this.’ Well, of course.”
“I said: ‘Sorry for disturbing you,’ and Galuška said: ‘You would like?’ I told him I was bringing albums, and if he might sign them, and he agreed to right willingly. And Slávek (chairman of the Local National Committee) was in such a fluster about it that he got up and left. And they said: ‘Stay here with us then.’ But I told them not to be angry, but that I absolutely cannot afford to do that, as Slávek would have a heart attack. Galuška sat, his back shaking with laughter, he was writing something extra into the albums. Then some comrade from Hradec came along, asking what everyone was signing, and I said: ‘Nothing for you, nothing for you.’ Some bloke from Hradec who just came there to stuff himself with food, certainly not. And those two slyboots - the directors Makovec and Brdečka - they were watching, so I turned to them and asked them to sign too. And they were quite willing to do so: ‘Nurse, I’m a Scout too. Don’t mind what we’re saying here, it’s none of their business.’ So we chatted; they were both pretty cheeky, and they said: ‘Stay here, so that there’s some fun to be had, it’s like a morgue here otherwise.’”
“We always staid up late during the gatherings, telling each other anecdotes and all sorts of things. When something dangerous was being said, one of the boys went outside to smoke, to see if anyone was listening outside. And one time I sat close to the window and I caught a glimpse of something outside. So I said: ‘Is one of us outside?’ But everyone was inside. So one of us, I don’t know who, rushed out the door, and the person outside legged it. Except that there was a deep ditch beyond the forest. They drove up there in secret and fell into it with their car; they were revving the motor there for about an hour, but they couldn’t come to us for help, of course, they’d give themselves away. It was wonderful.”
“I very much respected and admired that my parents were both such anti-Communists. It is usually said that people who are poor tend towards Communism. But I used to say that it’s more lazy people who do that, because my parents were amazingly hard-working.”
“In 1948, when the Communists took over, there was an anti-Communist manifestation here in the park. The amazing speaker Mr Procházka spoke out there, he said: ‘Please, do not fall for the Communist delusion, because the government has been taken up by rabble!’ That cost him dearly. As soon as the Communists started making the decisions, they came for him and he ended up in a concentration camp.”
Vlasta Ulrychová was born on 16 November 1925 in Dobruška. Her parents instilled into her both a love for literature and theatre, and a hostility towards the Communist regime. As a young girl, she was strongly effected by both the arrival of the German occupation army and by the havoc wreaked by the revolutionary guards in the aftermath of the war. The August-1968 invasion of Warsaw Pact armies into Czechoslovakia was just as painful for her. Since her childhood she was active in Czech Scouting, the Sokol sports movement, and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. She drew from her wartime participation in church youth plays in the 1960s to establish Divadlo hudby a poezie (Theatre of Music and Poetry). In both 1968 and 1989 she was active in the renewal of Czech Scouting in Dobruška. During the so-called normalisation she was one of the organisers of secret Scout gatherings. She is the holder of a number of Scout awards. During the background checks of 1969, as an active Scout, a Christian, and a member of the Society for Human Rights, Vlasta Ulrychová was dismissed from her job. In 1989 she was one of the founding members of the Civic Forum in Dobruška.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
