Věra Cepková

“My grandma had a small farm and they weren’t really capable of taking care of it with my grandpa anymore, so my mum used to help them, which is why I went to school there, in fifth grade. Of course, in the 1950s officials visited my grandma and their goal was to convince her to join the collective farm. But my grandma resisted it fiercely and she never joined. And when she knew they were coming or when they announced a visit, she ordered me to study Russian. I had to put my textbooks on the table and pretend I was learning Russian, and I couldn’t understand why. Then during one visit I understood it, because when she refused to join the collective farm, she said: ‘We’re a progressive family, even the child is learning Russian.’ Only years later I appreciated how smart she had been.”

“The Normalization period started in 1971 when the screenings began, when everyone was asked whether he or she agreed with the entry of the Soviet army or not. Many people settled their personal scores. And this was a time of enormous disappointment, seeing how the emerging freedom had ended. I myself struggled with it a lot; I was afraid to speak my mind. Eventually a colleague of mine helped me. He was about sixty and when us young girls asked him what we should do, he told us: ‘Act in such a way that you can look yourself in the mirror.’ Well, and that was it, I said I disapproved of the occupation, then I got on the blacklist… I didn’t get fired, that’s true, but my salary was deducted, I had no bonuses and no chance of a career advancement and I couldn’t even really change jobs because I wouldn’t get any decent job with such an assessment.”