"Grandfather dared the Germans. He owned a plot of land next to the Josefov airport. It was a meadow and it was rented by a farmer from the village of Nové Pleso, who took grass there and dried it for hay and so on. The Reich soldiers from the airport once herded horses there, probably not knowing that it was private land, that it didn't belong to the airport, because it wasn't fenced. The horses grazed the grass, the soldiers partially mowed it, some of it was trampled. My grandfather had the 'cheek' to write to the Germans for compensation, saying that the soldiers' horses had damaged it and he had lost the proceeds from the land. Strangely enough, the Germans at that time quite respected the property, they gave him compensation. This was in 1940. If it had been after 1942, when there were severe restrictions, when they killed for anything, he probably wouldn't have dared it."
"It was the first anniversary of the occupation and my parents were at work at the time. My dad had a book of quotes, I found a quote about freedom, I took a big wrapping paper and a marker and wrote the quote about freedom. I didn't say anything to my parents. I told myself I was going to hang it up somewhere, and I didn't know where. I ended up going to the high school. There's a kindergarten across the street from the villa where Policky used to live. I put the poster on the fence there. No one saw me do it. I didn't know that it could have had consequences. My mother worked at the post office in the telephone exchange, and when she came home from work she said that the militia was guarding downstairs, and there was a State Security officer was sitting with them upstairs right where they were transferring calls."
"As I turned the corner, I saw a military vehicle on the opposite side, heading towards Hradec Králové. It wasn't the Russians that morning, they came later, it was the Poles. They were repairing something on a bicycle, I think they were changing a wheel. One was standing with a gun, with a machine gun. I didn't know anything about weapons, but I think it was a machine gun. As I was walking, he saw in a net bag, net bags were fashionable in those days, what I was carrying. A 14-year-old girl with groceries, and all of a sudden he's pointing it at me. He started aiming at me as I was walking. You can't imagine the horror of that. I didn't really know why the soldiers were there, much less why they were pointing at me. I wanted to run so badly, but the terror tied my legs so tightly that I could hardly walk. Maybe it was lucky, maybe nothing would have happened, and maybe if I had started to run he could have fired. If I had done something, but I didn't gesticulate, I didn't have a banner, I didn't call out anything. Just a girl walking with her groceries and a soldier pointing a gun at a 14-year-old girl. It was a terrible situation. I watched him closely, and the whole time I walked to the door, before I went in, he was pointing at me. It's a lifetime thing, an unpleasant experience. I came home, threw my bag of groceries on the table, sat down on a chair, shook myself and was unable to do anything for half an hour."
Jana Pavlovská was born on 18 July 1954 in Jaroměř into a family of civil servants. Her grandfather on her father’s side was a businessman and had his own barber shop, her grandfather on her mother’s side was the headmaster of a burgher school. From the fifth grade she wanted to become a teacher. In August 1968, during the occupation of Czechoslovakia, a Polish soldier pointed a machine gun at her. In August 1969 she hung an anti-occupation leaflet in the town. She graduated from the gymnasium in Jaroměř in 1973. She studied Czech language and music education at the Faculty of Education in Hradec Králové. She graduated in 1977 and later earned her doctorate. She taught at the elementary school in Josefov, where she founded the children’s choir Sedmihlásek. She was a member of the Jaromír choir, which she led for several years, and the Circle of Friends of Music in Jaroměř. During socialism, she twice refused to join the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and in January 1990 she joined the party. She wanted to reform it into a modern left-wing party, and after three years she left the KSČM (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia). From 1990 to 1994 she was a councillor in Jaroměř. In 2024 she lived in Jaroměř.
Grandfather Josef Skočdopole, headmaster of the burgher school in Josefov, bottom centre, mother Drahomíra née Skočdopolová behind him on the right in a black dress
Grandfather Josef Skočdopole, headmaster of the burgher school in Josefov, bottom centre, mother Drahomíra née Skočdopolová behind him on the right in a black dress
Great-grandmother on my father's side on the right, grandfather Bohuslav Pavlovský with grandmother Anna Pavlovská, father Zdeněk Pavlovský and his little sister, 1941
Great-grandmother on my father's side on the right, grandfather Bohuslav Pavlovský with grandmother Anna Pavlovská, father Zdeněk Pavlovský and his little sister, 1941
