"That was probably in the year, father was working as the department head in ČKD on Vinohradská street. The comrades from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia came up to him and put an application on his table, but he - still when they were in there - stuffed it into the drawer and did not sign it. They fired him from his profession because of that. He was afraid to tell mother, he knew, that she would be scared about how the family would be able to live. He left home in the morning, as if he was going to work, walked around Prague somewhere, and returned in the evening. But in the meantime he was looking for employment and gained it in Brno. Then he told it to mother and she was afraid if they would throw us two girls out of university. But fortunately that did not happen. But it was all very difficult, back then people worked also on Saturday. He came back to Prague Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon he was already on the train back to Brno."
"I had my niece with me at the time, she was sleeping in the room with her grandmother. In the morning I got up early and went into the kitchen to make breakfast, I got immersed in the food, I turned on the radio while I was doing it, and I heard: 'The tanks have just crossed the border.' I told myself, that it was some kind of strange theatrical play. And then I realized, that it was no broadcast play. I woke my husband up, and he quickly ran to tell all of the tenants in the building, what was happening. We were looking out of the window, where tanks were going down Vinohradská street already. It was terrible. We went to Václav Square with my husband. But those Russian soldiers were not responsible for it, that they were going to war. One of them there wanted to hug me. My husband said: 'Don't let yourself go and let's get away!' And then we left. It was a horrible experience... that view from the window at the tanks..."
"I had the luck to have Jiří Mucha, the son of Alfons Mucha, he went to me. He was also a soldier during the war. And then when he was healthy, he went to England, where he had a wife. He asked me, if I did not want him to bring me something, maybe some clothes. I told him, that I wanted one book. He told me: 'Not a problem, I have my publisher there and I will arrange it.' And so he actually brought me that beautiful textbook. Recently I gave it to my former colleague, who is also dedicating herself to the method."
Jiřina Holubářová, née Humlová, was born on the 1st of April 1926 in Prague. Her grammar school studies were interrupted during the Second World War, when she was totally mobilized into the German Philips factory in Hloubětín in Prague. She experienced the bombardment of Prague in February of the year 1945. After the war she continued her studies at Charles University - in the field of English and Physical Education. She decided for physical therapy and stood at the founding of the Rehabilitation Centre of the Regional Institute for National Health in Prague, where she worked as a physical therapist until the end of the sixties, and then she started teaching at the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport at Charles University, where she worked as an expert assistant since the year 1991. In the field of physical therapy she dedicated herself long-term to the so-called Kabat method.
