“Within a fortnight the headmistress came and said: ‘I can’t hire you. The Ministry of Education received a letter about you from Olomouc. I can’t hire you.’ And that was Jarmila Cholinská. A great woman who was supporting twenty-seven people in her institution who had been expelled, struck off [the Party] or otherwise afflicted politically. One of them was Bohuslav Balajka - perhaps some of you know the name, if you’ve studied Czech. He wrote handbooks on Czech literature. He had the third part in manuscript form but wasn’t allowed to publish it. He lent it to me later, when my daughter was preparing for her maturity exams. Well, I started crying of course, and she said: ‘I see you’ll be a good worker. Leave it to me.’ So she replied to the ministry: ‘Dear comrades, Comrade [Čapková] is here as a substitute for a short-term maternity leave.’ And that short-term maternity leave stretched out - because the girl got pregnant again - to eight years. And then I was normally employed, and my place was taken by my brother, Václav Čapek. So our department of social sciences was: head - struck off, deputy - struck off, me, my brother - expelled, and Jindřiška Ptáčková, the writer - her sister and her brother-in-law had emigrated to Geneva. So that was our department of social sciences. I can tell you that I won’t generalise about all Communists. Jarmila Cholinská is a shining example that a person can be normal despite being a Communist.”
“When I started working, the comrade headmaster had me called to his office and said: ‘Do you know why you’re here? Why you didn’t get the spade?’ I said: ‘Um, no I don’t.’ ‘One comrade stood up for you greatly...’ The man in question worked at the national committee and went by the name of Čapka. Not Čapek - Čapka, no relation. ‘Go and thank him. He’s divorced, and he knows that a divorced woman with two kids has a tough life.’ So I visited him. ‘Hello, I came to thank you for making it possible for me to be with children.’ And he said: ‘Comrade, look, you’re single. I’d recommend that, to improve your background profile, you start dating a Soviet officer.’ I was stunned. I clenched my fists a bit. I reckoned: You have to stay calm, you have to children, nowhere to go, you’ve got a flat here, so stay calm. So I said: ‘I’m sorry, that’s not possible.’ And I left.”
“It was 1990, and they gave me my background dossier. So I started off laughing and then I burst into tears. I said: So this is what they wrecked people for. I had started to suspect something because she was always making notes of some kind, and then after she passed her maturity exam, I was sitting next to her, and I looked at her and said: ‘You have such nice, beautiful black hair.’ And she shifted her gaze like this. I thought: Golly, something isn’t right here. I taught her Russian and I gave her a three [a C mark - trans.]. She didn’t like me. That’s my only explanation.”
When I received the denunciation letter after 1989, I started laughing and then burst into tears
Zora Čapková
photo: Dobové: při filmovém festivalu v Ostrově, 1981; Současné: Interní zpravodaj ND, 2017
photo: Dobové: při filmovém festivalu v Ostrově, 1981; Současné: Interní zpravodaj ND, 2017
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Zora Čapková was born on 16 April 1938 in Olomouc and grew up with her parents and two brothers in the nearby town of Konice. She graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc, where she then found employment as a teacher at Jiří z Poděbrad Grammar School. In 1968 she found herself in trouble almost immediately after the occupation due to her disapproval of the regime and her honest nature; she was persecuted and bullied for everything she did at work. In 1970 a letter of denunciation sent by one of her pupils caused her to be relegated to the post of after-school carer. In the following years and of her own initiative, she became part of a group for the education of Romani children under the auspices of the district national committee - she organised singing classes and later also the first Romani camp in the Czechoslovak Republic. In 1974 she was forced to move to Prague, where she found shelter and employment at the Julius Fučík Central House of Pioneers and Youth in Grébovka thanks to the hospitality of its headmistress Jarmila Cholinská. Her work at Fučík House helped her fully discover her talent for organisation, and she devoted her whole future career to organising film festivals. Zora Čapková passed away on October, the 18th, 2018.
