"The boys were in the woods talking. My son was there. A man came out with a rifle and said that he was going to shoot them like pigs, that he was going after pigs. That's the way he aimed at them. They got scared, they ran away. One of the boys said afterwards that it was the SS man who interrogated him. When they told this at home, my husband's son, he took off with another lady and they went to Prague to complain to the Ministry of the Interior. I guess he met a good man there who told the... not to give the boys any trouble at their graduation. But it was still very difficult."
"Every letter, every parcel was open. Our phones were tapped. We found out. I had a friend from the east in Písek and we spoke Sharish together. When they interrogated my husband once, they asked, 'How does your lady talk to this friend of yours?' So that's how we found out they were listening."
"It was bad. I was in Slovakia with my children. My husband and my brother-in-law were on a motorcycle in Italy. After the Warsaw Pact troops arrived, they weren't allowed into Bohemia. Before they opened the border, they were in some resort in Yugoslavia. We were always listening to the radio to see what was going on. Only then did we get news from Yugoslavia that they were alive, that they were all right. It was difficult. I was working in Prague, so I had to go back to work and there were soldiers everywhere."
Magdalena Hojková, née Beňová, was born on 12 November 1941 in the village of Mokroluh near Bardějov in Slovakia into a strongly religious family. Her father, Jan Beňo, worked as a carpenter and often preached at the meetings of the Free Reformed Church (now the Church of the Brethren), to which the whole family was affiliated. Magdalena Hojková graduated from the Faculty of Education in Slovakia and worked as a teacher for several years. In 1964 she married Pavel Hojka, a preacher of the Church of the Brethren, and moved to Prague to join him. In the early 1970s, the couple moved to Písek, where her husband was called to lead the local branch of the Church of the Brethren. In the 1970s and 1980s, the entire Hojka family was closely monitored by the State Security Service (StB), and Pavel Hojka was often interrogated. In the 1980s, the Hojkas worked with troubled youth (alcoholics, drug addicts). In the November days of 1989, they founded the first private bookstore in Czechoslovakia, where Magdalena Hojková worked until her retirement. After 1989, Pavel Hojka and his followers left the Church of the Brethren and founded Elim, a society for diakonia and evangelisation. In 2022 Magdalena Hojková lived in Písek.
Magdalena Hojková with children from Cesta Primary School during the filming of PNS;
editorial team: Eliška Št'ahlavská, Jan Majer, Alžběta Vránová, Rozálie Homolová;
pedagogical guidance: Mgr. Eliška Vokrojová;
school: Elementary School Cesta
Magdalena Hojková with children from Cesta Primary School during the filming of PNS;
editorial team: Eliška Št'ahlavská, Jan Majer, Alžběta Vránová, Rozálie Homolová;
pedagogical guidance: Mgr. Eliška Vokrojová;
school: Elementary School Cesta
Magdalena Hojková with children from the Cesta Primary School during the filming of PNS, 2022; author team: Eliška Št'ahlavská, Jan Majer, Alžběta Vránová, Rozálie Homolová; pedagogical guidance: Mgr. Eliška Vokrojová; school: Elementary School Cesta
Magdalena Hojková with children from the Cesta Primary School during the filming of PNS, 2022; author team: Eliška Št'ahlavská, Jan Majer, Alžběta Vránová, Rozálie Homolová; pedagogical guidance: Mgr. Eliška Vokrojová; school: Elementary School Cesta
