Marta Jurková

“Zároveň s tím převzala státní správa veškerá sociální zařízení, jak československé církve, tak katolické charity a všechno to, co dělaly kláštery. To byl obrovský tah toho politického režimu, že zavřel církev jenom do kostelů. Říkal: oni si tam můžou dělat své obřady, můžou se tam modlit. Ale ta konkrétní služba lidem, která dřív byla obrovsky rozvinutá, pečovatelská služba, která jezdila po domácnostech a pomáhala starým lidem, to bylo v naší církvi nesmírně rozvinuté. Zorganizovala to dcera Františka Bílka, paní Bílková, ta zřídila v církvi službu sester, které na kolech objížděly domácnosti a pomáhaly lidem. A stát to jedním rázem převzal, vzal církvi možnost takto působit.”

“Já jsem byla asi tak dvakrát na té návštěvě, zaryla se mi na mysli ta [návštěva] v Leopoldově. Oni mě právě proto na ty návštěvy moc nebrali, protože zážitky z těch návštěv byly dost otřesné. Třeba v Leopoldově jsme se shromáždili, my, co jsme jeli na tu návštěvu, to byla cesta z Prahy do Leopoldova, to jsme spali někde v Mohelnici, abychom tam byli brzy ráno, protože jsme tam museli být přesně na určitou dobu. Tam byla taková jakoby čekárenská budka, ve které se ti lidi, co měli dovolenou návštěvu, shromáždili. Odtamtud byla 500 metrů cesta, tam se otevřela brána té obrovské věznice a odtamtud vás odvedli na oddělení, kde byly návštěvy. Byla tam místnost s pulty jako na poště, a podobně jako dnes, když se lidi brání před Covid-19 těmi plexiskly, tam byly mříže, potom tam bylo sklo, potom taková vyřezaná okýnka a v těch hustá síť jako v králíkárně. My jsme byli na jedné straně této přehrady. Na druhou stranu přivedli tátu, vedle něj stál bachař, za tátou stál reflektor a svítil na nás. Nesměli jsme udělat žádný pohyb, říci něco, co by vypadalo nebezpečně nebo čím bychom mu mohli něco naznačit. Měli jsme takovou ,šifru’, mluvili jsme o ,strýčkovi v Americe’, jestli přijede nebo nepřijede, tím se naznačovalo, jak se upraví politické poměry, ale myslím, že to bylo úplně naivní, táta z toho sotva mohl co vytušit. Jak čtu ty dopisy, byl pobytem ve věznici dost izolovaný od vnějšího žití. Ale zpět k té návštěvě: dostala jsem od jedné tety takové zlaté srdíčko, které se dalo otevřít a do toho se daly dát obrázky. Já jsem v něm nosila fotografii tatínka a maminky. A když jsme přijeli na tu návštěvu, vzala jsem si to a chtěla jsem mu ukázat, že mám jeho fotku v tom srdíčku. Otevřela jsem to srdíčko a šla jsem mu to ukázat. A bachař zařval: ,Skončím návštěvu!’ Tak jsem se musela vrátit a nemohla jsem mu to ukázat.

“To nám právě táta vyprávěl, později, když se k tomu vracel, že i během toho, kdy byl vyslýchán, říkal: ,My jsme zkraje měli své vyšetřovatele a odpovídali jsme na jejich otázky a zapisovaly se protokoly. A pak v určité době přišel ten vyšetřovatel a řekl: A teď, Přeučile, bude všechno jinak. To, co jste teď tady s námi povídal si sežerte a začneme nanovo.’ A začaly opravdu ty tlaky na tu inscenaci, aby se naučili, co mají odpovídat. Pamatuju si, že v průběhu, když mluvili o tátovi, byly takové absurdity, jako že v Chomutově měl nějaký sklad zbraní. A on přitom v Chomutově nikdy ani nebyl. To my jsme doma věděli. A on vypovídal, že jo, že jo. On říkal, že protokol, který se museli naučit - ,Děti, když šest neděl nespíte, tak pak už řeknete, tak mi dejte, co chcete podepsat, já podepíšu všecko.’ Ten člověk už je pak tak vyčerpaný, že nedokáže nijak reagovat. Oni je tím způsobem takhle tlačili.”

“The underground church around Mikulecký, Špak, it was a kind of a revival movement or a prayer group. The meetings with Špak usually took place in Budějovice, in Suché Vrbné, some lay persons from Litvínov also accompanied us when we went there, and the experiences from this fellowship were just great, What was amazing about it was that aside from official structures, which were as if loyal to the political regime, there were people who did not have the state approval for ministry, or those who were their friends, and they tried to bring some fresh air to the church, and to keep faithful to the matters of church fellowship. I have some documents here, when Mikulecký invited us, or when we tried to revive or awake the church. My great advantage was that I was Přeučilová by my family, and they knew that they stood no chance with me. While the other people were usually visited by some gentleman who tried to persuade them to cooperation (with the State Police – transl.´s note) or tried to influence them somehow, thanks to my father I was spared of all this. My husband Stanislav had more problems with this, because he was not ´protected,´ so to speak, by his family background, and because he was never silent. Like when he served in Bílina, he got himself in some pretty complicated situations. In Bílina, there was certain pastor Souček, and when this wonderful pastor was deprived of the state approval for activity in the church, the local council of elders supported him, every one of them, and they said: ´If pastor Souček can no longer work in church, we will not either.´ And since some of them were from the mining industry, the state church officials were somewhat afraid of this, and they began debating, and my Stanislav came into this situation. And they thought that a young, new pastor would come, and that he would explain it to all, that pastors do commonly replace one another. There was certain dr. Žižka, the most radical one of them, and he began advising him whom he should choose to the new council of elders. And Stanislav naturally had a talk with the former members, and said: ´I want these people to be my coworkers, I stand by them.´ So there were problems and pressures of this type there.”

“I finished my studies in 1961. In the first stage, I received an assignment to the congregation in Prague-Zderaz, but within a week an order came that I was not permitted to serve anywhere in Prague and vicinity, and that the only place where I could work as a pastor was the ´red north´, and so they sent me to Litvínov. I did not even knot where the town was, I had to look it up on the map. And so I began my ministry in Litvínov. Eventually, we had amazing fellowship in this congregation. The years I spent there were very nice. The Most region was terrible, that’s true. Fumes from smokestacks of Stalin’s factories, the lunar landscape... In my home I have one picture of a local painter, it shows a mass of black-grayish colour, and two black bushes in the middle of it, and this painting is so typical of it all, that we take it with us wherever we move, just because it depicts the environment we lived in so well. When I began as a pastor there, I was already married, I married Stanislav right after my ordination, but at that time he was doing his military service in Moravia. So I was beginning my ministry there alone. I went outside and looked around the place and I thought: ´This cannot be, this region is a real a lunar landscape.´ Natural environment was completely devastated there. I first met my husband at the faculty, he was one year ahead of me, and there we became friends.”

“My name is Marta Jurková, my maiden name was Přeučilová. I was born in July 1940 near this place, in Prague-Dejvice in Srbská Street, where our family moved after my father became an editor. My father was a tailor by trade, my mother was trained to be a seamstress. They first met in Prague-Vinohrady. Both were active members of Sokol and of amateur theatre groups, both were patriots following the ideals of Masaryk. My father’s name was František Přeučil, and my mother’s name was Růžena, her maiden name Knoblochová. When they married, my father briefly worked in Prague, then they moved to Pardubice. None of them ever worked in the trade which they learnt, my mother was sewing clothes only for family members, and due to his educational activities, my father began working as an editor, and he was employed in this position in the Živnostenské listy newspaper in Pardubice. We lived there till 1940. In 1937 my brother Jan Přeučil, who is now an actor, was born there. Only in 1940 they moved to Prague, where I was born, it was actually the beginning of the war.”

“My father still continued working as an editor and publisher. After the war he became a deputy for the National Socialist Party, because he was politically active in this party. He was a member of parliament after the war, in this short period until 1948. He was arrested in 1949, on November 8th. I remember that well, for it is also the date of the battle on the White Mountain. He was arrested in the morning and then tried in the trial with Milada Horáková.”

“We lived in the Bráník neighbourhood, and brother Václav Mikulecký served there as a pastor. I attended his classes of religion while in school in Bráník, because my mother insisted that in view of how the political regime had treated us, we would attend these classes, and thus there were only three of us attending religious education in Bráník, because other parents did not have the courage to sign up their children. But pastor Mikulecký had a wonderful youthgroup there. I realize now that the church environment was so natural to me that I forgot to mention that it was the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. My father was originally a Catholic, but my mother was of Czechoslovak Hussite faith and when they married, my father converted and they celebrated their wedding already in the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. My grandmother, mother of my mother, who had a great influence on me and who brought me up, had very bitter experiences from the Catholic Church, because two of her baby children died as infants and she did not have enough money for a funeral and they refused to give them a funeral. Therefore, when the Czechoslovak Hussite Church was established, she immediately joined this church with all her family. As for my father, he was very attracted by the patriotic emphasis of this new church, because nearly all of Masaryk´s followers and national socialists were also members of the Czechoslovak Church.”