Someone rang the doorbell that morning and a group of men entered the entrance hall. They explained our Mistress of Novices (Bernadetta Somosova) why they came. All novices gathered in the entrance hall and it was said to us, that we have to be transported to concentrate monastery in Modra village. The Mistress of Novices was trying to contact with Sister provincial, but she was inaccessible. The men went out and we closed the entrance gate. We were trying to pray in our chapel.
In that days I was responsible for the church of the Virgin Mary in Ročov. Holy Masses took place every Sunday and the most famous was the pilgrimage on August 15. The believers did not care about the „state monitoring“ and they proudly came to honour the God´s mother in the holy day. I was also guiding the visitors through the church and explaining the meaning of the baroque ornaments and decoration.
There were also some funny memories, and here is one from one sister from another monastic order. She did work in Social care institution: The ispection visited the institute and they saw group of guys on walk. The inspector asked the boys: Do you go with nuns to the church? And the boys answered: Yes, we do go, but only the „idiots“ do not go there.
The second day we find ourselves in a factory building Holba-Lenas in Hanušovice near Šumperk. As a accommodation serves us the residential building, then we started to work in the factory, where linen thread was processing. Unfortunately, the working environment was not safe and healthy at all. Lot of nuns got health problems or diseases from so called „ wet hall“, e.g.: loss of hearing, because of the machine´s noise, loss of finger or other diseases from work in damp environment. In that time, the only strength for us, was our Lord, he was with us in the sanctuary – the management of the factory allowed us to set up the chapel in first floor, directly above the wet hall.
A very big change for us happened in 1966. The senior doctor from Psychiatric asylum for children in Ročov near Louny requested the Ministry of culture, to allowed us to work there. He got the permission, but there was one requirement: we will not talk with children about the God and the religion. Of course, it was not easy for us, and we were admonishing for that. The senior doctor was also trying to keep "healthy" relations between employees, to have staff fully concerned in children.
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Jiřetín pod Jedlovou, komunitní dům voršilek, 28.09.2013
I am grateful to God for His guiding and His power
Květa Nives Folprechtová
photo: archivní foto - archiv pamětnice, současné - v květnu 2013 pořídila Lenka Vilímová
photo: archivní foto - archiv pamětnice, současné - v květnu 2013 pořídila Lenka Vilímová
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Nun Nives (Květa) Folprechtová, was born in 1930, in a small village near Kutná Hora. She had one older sister, her parents expected her as the younger daughter to stay with them and help them with household chores and tend to the small farm. Nives had a growing desire to become a nun (especially in the monastic order of the Ursulines). There was a priest in her family and her grandmother wanted to live in the monastery as well. The basic school, she attended, was founded by Ursulines. Between 1948-1949, she attended finishing school and Ursulines monastery in Kutná Hora. There was more time and opportunities to think deeply about her future. She was positive that the life inside the monastic order was the best for her, and her only wish. In 1949, she entered the novitiate in Batizovce in Slovakia. In August 1950 due to the intervention of state policy, all of the community was forced to leave the monastery and move to the small village Modra, where they did work in agriculture (vineyard, harvesting). The following year, in 1951, the sisters were moved to north Moravia, where they did work for the flax thread processing industry. Four years later, they were moved again, to Hejnice near Frýdlant, where they lived in a deserted Franciscan monastery. They did work for the flax thread processing industry again, but they worked in the monastery (not in the factory). Later, they did work in factories; they traveled every day from a monastery in Hejnice to the factory in Vratislavice nad Nisou. In 1966, work in the Flax thread industry was replaced by work in the social-health sector. Half of the sisters from Hejnice went to Ročov, while the other half went to a Social care house for children in Horní Poustevna. Nives Folprechtová worked in a psychiatric asylum for children in Ročov near Louny for nearly 20 years. In 1983, the Ursulines started to build the community house in Jiřetín pod Jedlovou. When they finished it, in 1986, all Ursulines moved there. Since spring 2013, the community in Jiřetín houses about 12 nuns. Nives Folprechtová currently lives in Jiřetín.
