"My classmate admitted to me that she was spying on me. Thirty years after the Velvet Revolution. I had no idea! I had no idea why I lost my red diploma. Because they gave me a C twice. I haven't failed any exam in my life, but they gave me a C twice and that was an excuse why they couldn't give it to me. I had no idea. And after thirty years, at that party, she confessed to me on the thirtieth anniversary of graduating from school. She married a classmate he was in the lower grade, but he was also a classmate from that school. He was known to be working for the State Security. But not her. So, she admitted it to me and said: 'We couldn't find anything on you, they wanted the exchange of bons (vouchers). But you didn't have any.' And I said, 'I exchanged the bons once, I bought jeans. And that was the only thing. ' And she said, 'But that was not enough! It just was not possible to let you fail. Teachers were on the task to let you fail.' She named those teachers who gave me C. They couldn't let me fail because it was good. Also the supervisor of my diploma thesis had the task to let me fail. He didn't help me at all, he didn't give me instructions, he didn't lead my diploma thesis."
"My father, then, I'd say he had to change jobs quite categorically in the 1950s, so he switched to geological research, went underground to explore the mines and deposits, and so on." - "Why did he have to leave the factory?" - "Well, somebody just did not like him. He had two such periods. The first was, they abused him first, because he founded cosmetics in Slovakia. So, the Slovak cosmetics, it's actually my dad's work. He commuted home once a week, so he was actually in Slovakia, in Levice, for over a week, and there he founded the cosmetics there: the Astrid Slovakia and Slovakofarma, so that's all my dad's work. And then when he completed it here, they wanted to get rid of him. There was no place for him back in Prague. He switched to geological research and became very successful in it. Unfortunately, when I was supposed to apply for university, it happened several times that he found an application for a party on the table. He kept asking, 'Whose is it? Whose is it? Take it. It's not mine.' And they tempted him there that way. So, he finally took it and threw it in the trash. And it caused that he got fired again. A few years before his retirement." - "So, from that geological research..." - "they fired him. When he was out of work for two months, and being out of work in socialism, that's almost a crime, isn't it? I was just doing my final year in high school. My brother was two years younger than me. So, to support two minor children, have one salary and living with a grandmother who gets two hundred crowns, it was absolutely crazy. My mother got very angry at the time and she went to the deputy and told him everything. It happened that they took him to the geological research again, but to a research institute, and he went to Mníšek every day to IRDE (Institute for Research and Development of Education)."
"My grandmother and grandfather had a lot of friends who were visiting them, and they were associated with the Czech minority, which built the city of Uzhhorod into its current form. There was the Hošovský family building a grammar school, then there was Dr. Pežanský from Košice, and it was a zupan (an unofficial term for the leader of the autonomous region in Slovakia). My grandmother and grandfather built a villa there. Such a small villa, a house, is still there today. Friends from Czech were visiting them, of course they were visiting all of them there. My grandmother had a friend, Helena Malířová, who was Ivan Olbracht's first wife, so my grandmother collected data for the Nikola Šuhaj loupežník (a novel written by Ivan Olbracht) in my grandfather's archive and helped to collect all the data for the book. At the same time, she was hiking with them in the mountains, in the lowlands, on Hoverla, and all the beautiful stories that are described in the works of Ivan Olbracht she experienced with them, as they lived with them." - "So, Ivan Olbracht also lived there ... "- "The Olbrachts lived there. When Ivan Olbracht broke up with Helena Malířová, my grandmother never forgave him, they reconciled only before death, before his death. "
Ljuba Loukotová, née Macevičová, was born on May 23, 1943 in Prague. The roots of her family are firmly connected with the former Austria-Hungary and especially with Subcarpathian Ruthenia: after the establishment of Czechoslovakia, Ljuba’s maternal grandparents moved to Uzhhorod. Her father, on the other hand, came from a large Ukrainian family from the Polish part of Ukraine. In order to study, he went to Prague, got married there and the next generation of Macevichs already grew up in Prague. Ljuba lived in Žižkov for forty years, but took turns attending school in Prague and Panenské Břežany. She graduated from the Faculty of Agriculture in České Budějovice and after graduation worked in the State Breeding Enterprises and at the General Directorate of Agricultural Supply and Purchasing. After November 1989, she worked at the Investment and Postal Bank (IPB) and at the Ministry of Finance. In the 1990s and then in the period 2013–2014, she served as the mayor of Panenské Břežany. During that time, she managed to build a treatment plant, water supply and sewerage system in the village. She strongly opposed the construction of Aero Vodochody Airport. Although Ljuba is firmly settled in Prague, she is still in contact with the Ukrainian community in the Czech Republic. She speaks Ukrainian and is aware of what the Ukrainians have enriched Czech society with.
Anna Štursová, the grandmother of the witness, (the second one from the right in glasses), a member of the Russian club led by Leoš Janáček, Brno around 1914
Anna Štursová, the grandmother of the witness, (the second one from the right in glasses), a member of the Russian club led by Leoš Janáček, Brno around 1914
