The Coppers Had a Way of Making Off Like Lightning
Marcela Kýrová, née Štilipová, was born on November 12, 1944, in Pilsen to Václav Štilip and his wife Marie, née Honomichlová. Kýrová’s grandfather was the renowned businessman Václav Honomichl, who between 1910–1948 ran a garage and small-part manufacture called Autoklinika (“CarClinic”) in Pilsen. When it was nationalized by the communists in 1948, he was evicted and banished from Pilsen. He had no choice but to settle down at a relatives’ home in Bezvěrov. As the granddaughter of a persona-non-grata, Marcela Kýrová was expected not to be able to study at a secondary school. Thanks to the support of the director of the local electro-tech school, she was accepted to the same school in 1958. After her graduation, she became an automation researcher in Skoda Industries. In January 1968, she married Ladislav Kýr, whom she had met in the same department. Following the Warsaw Pact invasion, the Kýrs considered fleeing the country, but eventually decided to stay in Czechoslovakia because of their parents. Two daughters were born in 1970 and 1976 respectively. The Kýrs were being followed by State Security, e.g. during the grandfather’s funeral. State Security also made an unsuccessful attempt to recruit Kýrová as a secret agent during her private trip to West Germany. During the Velvet Revolution in 1989, she was fired from work for her open support of the student strike. In the 1990s, the Kýrs moved to Prague where they had inherited a house. Up until 2021, Marcela Kýrová was working as a secretary at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University.