"So he went somewhere while working, put his festive clothes in his car, stopped in front of the faculty, went to take his exam, and then hopped back in. Except he did one thing to start with: he had to have a photo on the index, and since he didn't have a photo, just the PTP (Technical auxiliary battalion) one, he stuck the PTP one on. And he said that one professor, who gave gave him excellent grades and he was very complimentary and it was great, he said, 'Please, can you tell me if you're so stupid or so rude that you're going to put a photo of a PTP here?' It was still the case that it was an agricultural school in Brno, but he could take exams at the agricultural school in Prague. Normal exams. But as these internships are a week twice a year, where they had to be in school and long distance, so he had to go to Brno that week. Twice a year, he took a day off. So he took a vacation. The days off mostly fell on this, how else could he take it."
"They left, they fired the nuns in the borderlands. Now I don't know what year it was. It was sometime after '55. They fired the nuns, and now they needed to occupy it all. So each hospital got a certain quota of nurses that they had to put on these events. The Kolín hospital was given the region of Ústí nad Labem, so two days before May 1 they arranged it with me if I wanted to start school, and that they would arrange a course for me. And that was already the period when there were at least courses for the teachers. That they would arrange a course and I could start school if I wanted to. So I said yes. Then it happened that two days before May 1, the head nurse of the Kolín hospital came to me and said, 'You are of no value to us because you are starting school, so on May 2 you will report to the Regional Office in Ústí nad Labem.' I didn't say a word because I knew there was no other way."
"We still had some fields rented from a gentleman here, they were older, so dad if he went there. It was in the evening and mom was sick and lying down. Wheat was ready, I could see it was ready. And mom said, 'When somebody knocks, tell me. Mr. Kasal will come to get the wheat.' I guess it was evening. I went to open the door and I said, 'You're going to get the wheat.' My mother had the door open. 'The wheat is somewhere in the granary, you can take it. Mommy's sick.' 'Where's dad? I don't know, dad is somewhere away.' Mom was lying down and suddenly she heard this and sat up and saw that our Czech policemen from the next village were there. There was Mr. Moravec and another gentleman. She got up immediately and said, 'Oh, please, the girl made that up.' 'We weren't here, we weren't here and we didn't see anything.' Mom and dad were very shocked, they were very worried. Because if there had been someone who had turned it in, it would have been bad."
Jiřina Řepová was born as Jiřina Krejčíková on 28 January 1934 in Klipec in the Kolín district in a house that had belonged to her ancestors since the 19th century. Her parents owned six hectares of land and farmed with modern agricultural machinery until 1951, when the whole village was forced to join a unified agricultural cooperative (JZD). Jiřina, with her family background and generations of unconcealed evangelical faith, was happy when she was accepted to the Secondary School of Social Medicine in Kolín. After graduation, although she wished to study at the medical faculty, she was sent to a one-month course to teach nursing at a hospital in Most. In the 1950s, there was a noticeable shortage of nurses and there was a need to intensify the teaching of nursing. After completing the course, she began teaching immediately. It was not until two years later that she was sent on another one-year course where she gained more knowledge. Throughout her professional life she taught at the Secondary School of Nursing in Kolín as a teacher of nursing practice. Her husband, Blahoslav Zdeněk Řepa, also from a traditional evangelical family farming on a farm, was persecuted for his faith and family background. He was conscripted into the PTP (Auxilliary Technical Battalions), was only allowed to do manual labour all his life, was not allowed to finish his studies at the Agricultural College, was not allowed to work in his place of residence, but had to commute to Prague. He was rehabilitated in 1990. After 1989, the Řepas were given back their family property, which they spent the next 12 years trying to improve.
