"Having signed Several Sentences, we would visit friends and acquaintances and listen to Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. We'd listen to them reading the names and we'd think, 'Yeah, there's like hundreds or even thousands of people already, something must be happening,' like we were expecting it. And then on 17 November, we had the usual parental duties around the children; a supper and bathing, and then my father-in-law Hanuš came and told us to turn on Radio Free Europe: something was happening in Wenceslas Square in Prague. We turned it on instantly. We listened. There was such euphoria all of a sudden, I'm speaking for myself now, I'm sure I was thinking: 'Yes, this is it!' Immediately, I thought that if Prague did, then we can do something about it too. It was clear we weren't going to Prague; we had to do it right here at home, where we were, in our town. I said to my husband, 'Let's think about who we should invite to talk to and discuss this.' That was in my head on Friday. On Saturday, my husband and I talked it over some more. And we invited the first ten people to join us on Sunday."
"It was strange then because when they dispersed us and took us to the station for questioning, I know we were waiting. I thought, 'You're in school now: you're finally in that municipal school in Veselí nad Moravou,' - where I went as a kid and got my first job. I did. When they questioned me, they talked very nicely initially of how I was such a promising teacher, why I was making things so complicated for myself, and that I should act differently and be conscious and all that kind of talk, quite calm. But when they wanted names and I had to tell them who I knew... I think they even asked for Several Sentences, who and how, and who gave tha to me and who I had gotten to sign and stuff, I didn't mention anyone at all. So then they got kind of intimidating, but nothing happened at all. They were being scary, raising their voices and shouting. I insisted that I really just met my friends randomly in the square. Then we arrived home. They said they would let the school know and that I wouldn't be teaching anymore. They knew everything at school, but the time was so advanced that I just know we had teachers' meetings where we were told not to sign this or that pamphlet and to be conscious as teachers and so on. We had a friend; she was my teacher colleague, Jarmila Pospíšilová. They're the couple we first contacted and then started doing things after 17 November. Jarmila and I got sort of labelled; some colleagues stopped speaking to us. The headmaster was in the same pigeon hole - he might have been a communist, but certainly his views did not fully agree with the communist trend. He understood us but he had to do what he was expected to do as the headmaster. So got through that and never got fired. After that, things went very fast, then November came, and we both kept the job."
"It was a time when I perceived in my adolescence the lack of freedom of speech, of opinion and the inability to travel. Also, my friends and I liked to go to church, to May services as little girls, twelve or thirteen (years old). All of this started to come together for me, in that actually I couldn't be free because our country was one that somehow restricted freedom of speech, of expression, of assembly, you couldn't travel. It felt like we were living in our own subculture, the underground, gathering at home. When my husband and I were dating, we listened to songs and tapes, and later on, to ones my brother-in-law sent that weren't allowed, from Vienna, from emigration. We lived in our own way. I was very young and I thought that this family could fill in for what we couldn't do, where we couldn't go. Like, I like to travel a lot. I know I got that from my parents and grandparents. But it wasn't possible: just like my great-grandfather couldn't travel, so my dad couldn't, so I couldn't. So it was kind of natural to start a family and keep on living for ourselves in a way that we enjoyed in that small group where we understood each other."
Hana Brigita Reichsfeld, née Hyráková, was born in Uherské Hradiště on 23 March 1963 into a traditional Christian family. She spent her childhood and most of her adult life in Veselí nad Moravou where her parents worked in the local ironworks. In 1981, while still a student at the Marie Kudeříková Grammar School in Strážnice, she married Lubomir Reichsfeld. In 1986, she finished her studies at the Faculty of Education of Palacký University in Olomouc and worked in several schools in the Veselí nad Moravou area. She signed “Several Sentences” in June 1989. She got in touch with the document through friends who knew Stanislav Devátý. She went on spreading the petition in Veselí nad Moravou. She was questioned after a suppressed protest in Olomouc in August 1989 and threatened with dismissal from school. In November 1989 she became one of the leaders of the Velvet Revolution in Veselí nad Moravou. In 1992-2002 she and husband lived in Prague, where he worked at the ODS headquarters as the head of the management network. In 2008, she joined the Secular Franciscan Order and also serves as a member of its national council. In 2023, she lived in Veselí nad Moravou, with her husband Lubomir, having raised three children.
