“When the Germans came it was an awful day, rainy. I was passing through the park on my way to school and I saw the tanks and the Germans. Our first lesson that day was history - with Mrs Navrátilová. We were all crying, and she said: ‘My dear girls, you’ll live to see them forced out, by I won’t.’ I still remember that. Occasionally some men came, from the SS. We stood in a line facing the wall and they checked our satchels. We weren’t allowed to bring any Czech books to school. If they’d found any, they could have closed up the grammar school. The teachers were required to give the Nazi salute. Only the history teacher actually did it - he was an unpleasant type. No one else did.”
“When the liberation came... back then I lived with a family that had windows facing into the street. The Germans were standing in a queue outside, they were to be expelled. It was awfully hot, and one of them, our foreman, asked me if I’d give him some water. Which I did. He was a good man, so I gave him water. Just imagine, many years later when I was teaching in Gottwaldov, one colleague thought it worth his time to go to Ústí and find it if I hadn’t collaborated by any chance. And he came back declaring that I had given a German some water. So I wasn’t subjected to Party proceedings.”
“Yoga wasn’t an independent part of combined physical education. We were subordinated to health physical education. And one very energetic lady, Vlasta Kaplanová, launched this effort to have us headed separately. At the time when the separation process was underway, State Security had us head trainers summoned. That was always fun. I told them: ‘Why don’t you come exercise with us, you wouldn’t have to waste ours or your time, just come and exercise.”
Miluše Kubíčková was born in 1924 in Olomouc. Her father was a legionary, he had fought at the Battle of Zborov. During World War II she was sent to do forced labour at a German factory in Brno. She received a degree in English and philosophy and later took an interest in social sciences. In 1967 she went for a scholarship to stay in the USA, she visited the world’s fair Expo 67 in Montreal. She actively participated in Prague Spring. In 1990, she was politically rehabilitated, and later lectured at the Faculty of Pedagogics of Charles University for several years. Milše Kubíčková passed away on March, the 15th, 2018
