"I had problems in the company, in Projekta. A flat in the house next door was rented to a Venezuelan family, the man was an ambassador here, that is, in the consulate. They had two small children, the lady was full of energy and we became friends. But it got to the point where the manager called me in, saying that I was socializing with diplomats, and I wasn't allowed to do that. Once we even took them to pick up mushrooms near Cukrák (transmitter) where there was some facility, but we didn't care. And the manager aked what I dared do. I said I didn't know why I couldn't be friends with them. But [he said] how could I dare do that and that I couldn't associate with them anymore. They're focused on me. So I asked if, when I met Venezuelans and they said hello to me, if I was allowed to say hello back. In short, I was under surveillance and I had the problems at work."
"As far back as I can remember from my childhood, my father was an assistant professor at university in the department of urban planning. But he was there only until 1957 because then there were background checks and he was not approved by the Communists, so they fired him and then he couldn't find a job. Eventually they hired him at Agroprojekt, which is not an interesting thing for an architect to do - to design cowsheds and pigsties. But he had to support us somehow."
"I was in England at the time, they were showing us what was happening in Prague. We were perhaps better informed than those who were here. My parents sent me a letter. They were worried that it wouldn't reach me, so they sent it to their friend, a professor of urban planning, and he sent it to me, so that it would be sent from Poland. My parents wrote me to stay in England. But I didn't want to, I didn´t have what it takes. I wouldn't have enjoyed it there. It's much nicer here."
Dušana Janská, née Minářová, was born on 4 February 1945 in Prague into the family of architect - urban planner Antonín Minář. She grew up with a brother five years older than her. The family lived in Spořilov, Prague. Her father worked as an artist during the war on animated films, and after the war he also drew for Walt Disney’s company. He taught urban planning at the Czech Technical University, but in the fifties he did not pass the background checks and had to leave. He found a decent job in his field of work after a longer period of time, ending up in the Regional Project Office. Dušana Janská graduated from grammar school and then studied architecture at the Czech Technical University. In August 1968 she was in England to do a summer job when Czechoslovakia was occupied by Warsaw Pact troops. Her parents wrote to her to emigrate, but she returned. As an architect, she designed department stores, restaurants, sports and school grounds and loved her work. In the first half of the 1980s she designed cooperative terraced houses in Prague 5, one of which she still lives in today. In the 1980s, she worked for the Projekta company and was followed and investigated by State Security because of her friendship with her neighbours, the family of an ambassador from Venezuela. At the beginning of the 1990s, Projekta fell apart and Dušana Janská joined the Prague City Architect’s Department as an architect, then worked for several years in the state administration, where she was in charge of assessing and issuing local planning decisions, and for the last year she worked in the Monument Preservation Office. Since 1991 she has been married to Jiří Janský, whom she met in Projekta.
