“In 1965 (actually 1967 – ed.’s note) when Růženka Vacková returned, she began to take care of me intensively, because for her it was no formality. She was my godmother. They imprisoned her about a week after my baptism and I remember that they used my age to count for how long she has been behind the bars. I was with her for many years, and we were meeting several times a month. She was speaking to me about her work which she was completing at that time, and it seemed as waste to me and therefore I agreed with her that I would bring my group of students along.”
“Our second visit. I was very upset and that in turn upset my brother. After a long wait – you always had to wait outside the prison – they led us in. They showed us to a table and my brother got a hysterical fit. He started screaming: ´What have you done with my Dad?´ They played a joke on as an they brought in another man named Mareška. I remember that my brother was devastated by it. The man did not look entirely different, at least I didn’t see a difference. I was still a little girl then.”
“Only recently I learnt about various things that I did during the arrest. Since I was already used to these visits (by the StB Secret Police – ed.’s note), the first thing I did was that I went to Dad’s office chair where he had his suit with cigarettes in the pocket, and I started offering them cigarettes. One policeman became more approachable upon this and he began talking to me. He allowed me to follow him and watch. I made it even more agreeable for him, when I brought my potty and I assured him: ´Yes, I’m watching.´ A new thing I learnt about Dad was that he was an orphan, but in spite of all the poverty he had to endure he has always kept a packet of some golden jewellery that he inherited from his parents. Mom packed this stuff and sent me with it over the yard to my grandma’s.”
Anna Bořkovcová, née Marešková, was born 1951 in Prague. She spent her childhood around the church of the Vyšehrad canonry where her grandfather worked as a gravedigger. She had one older stepbrother. Her parents Anna Čermáková and RNDr. Vojtěch Mareška got to know each other during meetings of illegal group Catholic Action “Rodina” (“Family”), which was led by prof. Růžena Vacková and priest Josef Zvěřina. Anna’s father was arrested for his involvement in Rodina in February 1954 and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for high treason in the political trial Malíková Jitka and Co. He was released on parole in amnesty in 1960. Růžena Vacková was Anna Bořkovcová’s godmother and both women were meeting regularly after Růžena’s release from prison in 1967. These meetings gradually evolved in art history seminars which were held in prof. Vacková’s apartment. Mrs. Bořkovcová and her husband later had contacts with people who were involved in Charter 77. Anna Bořkovcová graduated from Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague and then worked as an elementary school teacher. In 1990 she became involved in municipal politics in Prague 11 for a brief time. She subsequently worked as a social coordinator in the Social Care Centre in Prague (municipal Social Services Centre). She has brought up her four children and she is now retired.
