"Both of them worked for aunt Moravcová's father, Mr. Krčil, and both of them were trained there. For example, aunt Pešková used to cover for her when aunt Moravcová had a date. Well, as girls do. Well, and unfortunately, I experienced that we went to visit aunt Moravcová, and when we arrived there, the house was surrounded by Germans, and then I only saw aunt Moravcová being taken out dead, because when they came to interrogate her, she knew what was waiting for her, that they would torture her, so she poisoned herself..."
"For example, I joked that once when I knew Professor Hájek was there... and that was someone for us at the time. He was the first one to point out that the Polish officers in Katyn were murdered by the Soviets and not by the Germans, as they originally blamed the Germans, so he was the first one to prove that it was the Russians. So, one time when he was there, I had about five State Security men outside my apartment. And I made the joke that I called the regular cops, that there was a group of just people in front of my apartment and that I was afraid to come out. And they came upon them. They explained it to each other, but then they moved up one floor."
"It was necessary to find material, and because the university was always reconstructing something, there was some material, so I chose the wood that could be used to build the catafalque. Well, and it was covered with black canvas, and that was also found in the university's stock. There were always black flags put up when somebody died or something, so that material was there, so it got suitable that it was used. And the people that built it with me, they were just maintenance people."
Jarmila Macnerová, née Sochová, was born on 14 September 1935 in Prague. She grew up with her mother and a landlady, whom she called her aunt and who took care of her the most. During the war, Jarmila was affected by the death of Marie Moravcová, with whom her aunt was friends. She also survived the bombing of Prague and the Prague Uprising. After graduating from secondary school, she started studying architecture and civil engineering. In 1969, she got the opportunity to put a catafalque under Jan Palach’s coffin during a memorial service in Karolinum. During the normalisation period she was a neighbour of Professor Zdeněk Jičínský and helped him in contact with other dissidents. She participated in many construction projects, including the construction of the South Town. At the time of the interview (2021) she was living in Prague. Jarmila Macnerová died in 2023.
