“I’ve really had a very nice childhood up until the point when my dad was arrested. I remember him leaving for Prague and being arrested at the main station. On 7 November they suddenly came over to do a house search. They arrived and we had no idea what was going on. They searched through the apartment, throwing out all our things, going through books. When we returned from school at around 2 p.m. we wanted to eat. They said: ‘They won’t die of hunger for once.’ This is what they said. When we wanted to go to the bathroom a secret policeman would always have to accompany us and supervise. I went with my mum and stood in the door so that she wouldn’t be so exposed. It was horrible. Really, those times were horrible.”
“My dad had spent his first nine months in solitary confinement in České Budějovice. When they returned from the nick they had to commit to not speaking about anything they witnessed or they would have locked them up again. So I don’t remember much from that time because my dad hadn’t spoken up. And when I got married I worried about different things. I just remember dad saying that when he was in the confinement there was an open window in his cell through which some smelly air from the Větřní paper mill blew in. Suddenly, he heard someone behind the door say: ‘This one had eaten’ [‘Ten jed.‘] As he was stressed out he thought they were talking about him getting poisoned [poison = jed] and that this was the end of his life. But in fact the wardens talked about food.”
Lidmila Rajbrová, née Fialová, was born on 2 May 1939 in Strážov in the Bohemian Forest into a Catholic family. Her father Karel Fiala worked as a teacher and was an active member of the Czechoslovak People’s Party. During WW II both of Lidmila’s parents collaborated with the resistance and helped people cross the border. After the February 1948 communist putsch Karel Fiala was deprived of all his posts in the party. In 1952 he was suddenly arrested and sentenced for alleged conspiracy with Vatican and high treason to six years in prison. He had served his time in Valdice and Mírov where he had met Gustáv Husák, the future Czechoslovak president. Lidmila and her four younger siblings grew up with their mum only. They were able to hold out thanks to the help of their neighbors and relatives. While Lidmila could graduate from a medical school in Strakonice, her siblings were only allowed to attend vocational schooling. She then worked in the Strakonice hospital and following her 1961 wedding in Prague’s Vršovice hospital. Her father was released from prison in 1958. He never talked much about his time there because he had to swear to remain silent. In 1968 the family asked for his judicial rehabilitation but these efforts were quashed with the arrival of Soviet tanks. Ever since late-1960s up until retirement Lidmila worked in the Post Newspaper Service. Karel Fiala died in 1982 but his wife Klotilda lived to see his rehabilitation in 1990. Lidmila Rajbrová had two children and three grandchildren. She lived in Prague. She died on September 14, 2024.
