A gift is to live without memory loss
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Svatava Němcová was born on February 25, 1931 to Jindřich and Maria Čunát. She spent her whole life in Milevsko, from where she has many memories of the Second World War. She later married and raised two daughters there. Her great love was exercising at the Sokol club, a gymnastics society originating in Prague in 1862. As a teenager, she participated in the XI. All-Sokol Slet, then graduated from the Tyrš school for trainers in České Budějovice and eventually became chief. Exercising, along with faith and strong family relationships, helped her overcome difficult life periods. When her father was sentenced to 15 years in prison for high treason, she supported her family as a lathe operator. After giving birth to two daughters, she managed to get a job in an accounting firm. Although her father was rehabilitated in 1969, the family was accompanied by other restrictions at the time of normalization (the period following the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia), for example regarding her daughters’ study options. In 1980, the witness became seriously ill and could no longer return to work. She spent the next years of her life dedicated to her family and work at Sokol. She considers the time after the Velvet Revolution to be the most beautiful period of her life. She was still living in Milevsko at the time of filming.
