The Nazis trained people to be silent, and that was useful under communism.
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Miloslava Geislerová, née Dvořáková, was born on 21 July 1945 in Boskovice, but the family soon moved to Šternberk. Miloslava came from six siblings. The fate of the family was significantly marked by the communist regime. Miloslava’s uncle Ferdinand Debef was one of those who left Czechoslovakia during the Second World War to fight against Nazism in the ranks of the British RAF. Ferdinand returned home after the war, but before February 1948, fearing the growing communist regime, he fled again to the West. When he returned to Czechoslovakia in 1964, he blamed his family for not being sufficiently involved in the fight against the regime. At the time, Miloslava’s parents had divorced, and after the August 1968 occupation by Soviet troops, two of her siblings - Jana and Bronislav - emigrated. Her younger brother Přemysl was then imprisoned by the regime in psychiatric hospitals for sending a letter to the presidential office complaining about the behaviour of the Soviet soldiers. After his release in 1981, Přemysl committed suicide. The family gradually stopped communicating with each other and the siblings, living in different parts of the world, never met again. Miloslava graduated from the Sternberg Secondary School of General Education, where she graduated in 1962. During her lifetime, she had many jobs, including a worker in a textile factory in West Bohemia and a typist in a hospital in Sternberg. With her first husband Petr she raised a son David, and with her second husband Rostislav a daughter Pavla. At the time of the interview Miloslava Geislerová lived in Olomouc.
