We didn’t even make ten steps, there was always someone who stopped with my father
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Zdena Plesarová, née Bubílková, was born on June 14, 1947 in Zlín as the second child of parents Marie and Vojtěch Bubílek. Her father, a special pedagogue and an air force reserve officer from Bystřice pod Hostýnem, went abroad at the end of 1939. After various ups and downs, he ended up in 1940 in England, where he served in the 311th Bomber Squadron of the RAF. In the absence of her father, Zdena’s mother and brother Jaromír (* 1932) were hiding. In 1944, because of the insistence of the family, her mother reported herself to the Gestapo and was imprisoned in Svatobořice for about three months. No one had any news about Zdena´s father throughout World War II, not even from them. In April 1945, his father was transferred to Norway and organized the repatriation of Czechoslovak citizens to the homeland as a part of the SHAEF program. He did not return for good until the autumn of 1946. The reunited family soon grew. As little Zdena was born. However, the marriage suffered a lot from the six-year separation, and the father left the family after a few years. Nevertheless, Zdena and her mother and already an adult brother lived in an army apartment building in Prague-Karlín for several more years. After their father was discharged from the army in 1952, their large apartment was divided and the other half was acquired by another family. About 1957, Zdena and her mother moved to a villa in Bystřice pod Hostýnem, where the couple had lived before the war. Zdena graduated from general secondary school, but there were no funds for further studies. So she started working and gradually remotely completed her qualification as a special pedagogue and worked at a special school in Bystřice pod Hostýnem. At a later age, until she retired, she ran the art therapy studio of the Javorník Home for the Disabled (DZP Javorník) in Chvalčov. She basically set out in her father’s footsteps - Vojtěch Bubílek was the director of a number of newly emerging special schools since 1954, for example in Odry, Melč, Josefuv Důl or Prague. In 1964, he was informed of the reasons for his dismissal from the army (allegedly for preventive reasons that were found to be unfounded) and he was subsequently rehabilitated. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed Prague Regional Inspector of Special Education, and in 1966 he received the Deserved Teacher award. Vojtěch Bubílek died in 1993 at the age of ninety. His estate is cared for by Zdena’s niece, Zuzana Kohoutová. Zdena continues to live in a family villa in Bystřice pod Hostýnem.
