There has always been hope that it will change
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Jarmila Kostecká (née Pechalová) was born on 29 November 1933 in Hrušov. Her parents, Amálie and Josef Pechal, were active members of Sokol during the First Czechoslovak Republic. Moreover, Josef Pechal was an officer in the Czechoslovak army. Already at the beginning of the war he was arrested by the Gestapo for resistance activities and died in Mauthausen in October 1941. In the same year, Jarmila’s mother was arrested, but the Nazis released her after two months of imprisonment and interrogation. Following the example of her parents, Jarmila herself grew up in a Sokol and patriotic environment. As a junior in 1948, she took part in the XIth All-Sokol Slet, which was also a demonstration of trainees against the incoming communist regime. After graduating from the grammar school in Ostrava (Matiční české realné gmnázium), she studied at the Faculty of Science of Comenius University in Bratislava, from which she graduated as a teacher in 1955. Two years later she married ing. arch. Zdeněk Kostecký, with whom she raised two children - Martin and Zdeňka. Throughout the communist regime, the Kostecký family kept a clean slate and did not join the party. Besides her family, singing was also one of Jarmila’s beloved hobbies. As a member of the Lúčnice ensemble, she visited Moscow during the 1950s. After her husband’s death in 1986, following her mother’s example, she never married again. In the 1990s, when the Sokol organization was revived, she continued her earlier activities and participated in the education of her successors. In 2022 Jarmila Kostecká lived in Tichá in Valašsko with her daughter Zdeňka.
