“The first television announcers were actresses from the National Theatre… the theatre director Hudeček, who was the first one, then liked to say: ´I cannot believe that I actually began as a television announcer.´ He was later known as a great director and he directed a number of beautiful plays in the National Theatre, but he began his career as a TV announcer. The National Theatre then put an end to it – the actresses cannot work in television, it is below their standards and it harms their pronunciation because the ladies have to speak differently on television and in theatre. Therefore they no longer allowed them to do it. The television organized an audition and we were looking for new ladies. It was funny, you would laugh if you knew what kind of people were applying.”
“Obviously, in 1948 I didn’t know better than to take part in the celebration of the liberation of Pilsen. Of course – we, the young people, marched there and sang the American anthem, and all that goes with it… and suddenly a Black Mary car arrived and they picked us from the crowd and took us to the police station. There we were questioned one by one, they asked us who we were, where we came from, and all the details. I came to work the following day and the president called me: He asked me: ´Marta, what have you been doing?´ I replied: ´I haven’t done anything.´ ´But we have received a report from the police.´ ´Well, I was just celebrating the liberation of Pilsen, what’s wrong with that?´ ´The whole thing is wrong. We were ordered to punish you, so what shall we do about your punishment?´ ´I don’t know.´ He didn’t want to harm me, and so he transferred me to another department,. He told me: ´I have to do something about you, and I don’t know what. I don’t really want to make it bad for you, and so I will transfer you to the filing room, there are typists working there as well, and it will be to your advantage, because you will work according to set standards and you will earn more than up here in the executive department.´”
“They confiscated our family shop, including all the supplies and they searched our house. My mom kept a cutlery set for me, and they found it. It was made from ordinary stainless steel, but the spoons were gilded. This was placed in that shop window for display to show everybody that we were traitors of the nation and that we hoarded large supplies and therefore we were harming the socialist system… and it was done to warn people not to behave like us. We were called the threat of the nation and traitors of socialism, we were robbing the state and buying supplies cheaply and hoarding them and what not, and even selling them or what. There were articles written about us in the papers, all the people were talking about it, and we were put through all this. It was in the 1950s, when the Communists were on the rise and raising hell.”
Marta Dufková was born July 29, 1927 in Úlice near Chomutov. Her parents, Jaroslav Kinský and Božená Kinská (née Jílková) divorced in the 1930s and their daughter and son were sent to their grandmother in Česká Třebová. Their mother joined them in 1938 when she was expelled from the Sudetenland region. In 1942, Marta began studying at the school of viticulture in Mělník, but the school was closed down by the German authorities shortly after. The family managed to place Marta in a two year trade academy in Myto in October 1942. After the end of the war, her uncle Josef Jílek arrived to Česká Třebová and persuaded the family to allow Marta, who had just graduated, to move to Karlovy Vary and work for him. He was the Post Office counsellor, and had recently become the general manager of the National Administration of Car Repair Centres. After he gave up this position, Marta began working as an assistant to the director of the Post Office in Karlovy Vary. When the office was abolished in 1947, she transferred to the Post Office directorate in Pilsen, where she worked in the vice-president’s office.
In 1948 she took part in the celebrations commemorating the liberation of Pilsen by the American army. Consequently, she was arrested and interrogated. The vice-president Hertzl dealt with the order to punish her in a very smart way; he ordered her transfer to the typists’ office where she was to receive a higher pay than in her former position in the directorate. Dufková was a member of the Pilsen district Sokol organization, and she was one of the participants in the 11th All-Sokol Rally in Prague.
The family wine shop Marta came to work in became confiscated by the state in the 1950s. The family was called traitors of socialism and slandered in newspapers. A display warning others of them was even placed in a shop window in Česká Třebová. The family was allowed to stay in their villa, because there was no other place to relocate them. In 1952 Marta requested a job transfer to Holerti, a computer data processing company, working for the Czechoslovak Radio. The Radio director František Nečásek offered her a job in the radio station in 1953. She accepted and shortly after was selected to work in the newly established television studio. She worked in the Czechoslovak Television from its very beginnings until 1985 as the head of production. Marta Dufková died in 2015.
From the right: mother Božena Kinská (maiden name Jílková), grandmother Marie Jílková, uncle František Jílek, aunt Ludmila Jílková, aunt Marta Kinská, aunt Anna Jílková, father Jaroslav Kinský
From the right: mother Božena Kinská (maiden name Jílková), grandmother Marie Jílková, uncle František Jílek, aunt Ludmila Jílková, aunt Marta Kinská, aunt Anna Jílková, father Jaroslav Kinský
