War is a horrible thing
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Zdenka Čechová was born in the Husovice neighbourhood in Brno on February 5, 1926. Her father worked manual jobs and her mother was a housewife all the time. Sometimes she would go to work as a shop assistant. When the Second World War broke out, all schools became closed down and Zdenka’s parents decided that they would take their only daughter to her grandmother’s in the Vysočina region. The situation there was safer and more peaceful. Zdenka spent her time there in a relatively uneventful way, however, she also witnessed bad treatment of Germans done by Czechs after the end of the war, although the Germans had been living there with them for a long time and helping the Czechs during the war. Zdenka returned to her native Brno when the war was over. She witnessed a massive deportation of Germans. Due to her great sense for justice, she decided to study law and she became a public prosecutor. Her career was marred by the year 1968 when Czechoslovakia became occupied by the Warsaw Pact armies. She expressed her disapproval of the occupation in a radio broadcast of the Czech Radio where she criticized the event. Her act was followed by persecution, threats and anonymous phone calls. Zdenka Čechová decided to emigrate. After 1968 she packed her belongings and with her daughter she went to Switzerland via Austria. She was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for this. Zdenka was only able to return to Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution and then she lived in Velké Meziříčí. Zdenka Čechová died in March 2021.