"That was a shock. Jan Palach was, I believe, about three years older than we were at the time. I was less than 18 at 69 and he was twenty-one, so he was actually a peer. Personally, I experienced it very emotionally, because a large part of my generation was so sick of the adults bending their heads so soon. We [were] full of ideals. But I have to say that my father, who was an extremely wise and very thoughtful man, said all this year in '68: 'Look, you mustn't feel that way because
"Dr. [Jaroslava] Moserová and I were waiting for a car with President Havel and then Prime Minister [Petr] Pithart on Rokycanská, from where they were coming from Prague. They arrived, we were in another car and they were in the car in front of us. [Vaclav] Havel was supposed to reach Chodské square, where Ambassador Shirley Temple was waiting for him. We were going and I was watching and I said, 'But we're not going to Chodské [square]... We're going somewhere else entirely.' And all of a sudden, I find out we're going to Bory. We stopped outside the prison – I would point out that it was early May 1990 – and that's where we all got out. They were both such short men, Jarka Moserova was small too, only I stood out there because I was big. [Vaclav] Havel went to the gate, to the prison entrance, so we followed him. He rang the bell and the peephole rang. There was a guard, a young boy, and Václav Havel was standing there saying, 'Hello, I'm Havel, the president, do you think we could go in?'"
"I don't know what happened after that, but one of our neighbors was run over by a Russian tank in a car in a village near Strančice. He was going to see his wife at the hospital. She just gave birth - and the tank ran him over..."
"My father came from four children; he was the youngest. He went to high school, then law school. On November 17, 1939, he was a senior at the Law School. He's been arrested, or rather taken. The Germans selected college dormitories and gathered students in ruzyně prison. Nine randomly selected [students] were shot there and the others were taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. This Sachsenhausen was not only for Czech students or students from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Gradually, students from other countries were brought there. It started with Poland, then [followed] by the Dutch, the Belgians and the French, as the German army gradually occupied the states of Europe. I don't have it historically based, and it's just my point of view, but I think every totalitarianism goes primarily after the intelligentsia."
Anna Röschová, maiden name Zítková, was born on May 26, 1951 in Strakonice into a religious, patriotic family. To her mother Maria, née Dubová, she went for comfort, her spiritual and mental growth was taken care of by her father František Zítek. He came from the village of Pechova Lhota, where they had a smaller farmhouse. In November 1939, following anti-Nazi demonstrations and the closure of Czech universities, František Zítek was deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, from where he returned in 1942. After the war, her father and other inmates founded the International Union of Students. Anna was raised in an anti-communist spirit from a very early age. On 21 August 1968, she experienced the arrival of Warsaw Pact troops tanks in Strančice. She experienced very emotionally the self-immolation of Jan Palach, whose funeral she attended on January 25, 1969. In 1978 she graduated from the Faculty of Law of Charles University and in the same year she was appointed a notary in Pilsen. On 5 December 1981 she married Ludvík Rösch. In June 1989, she signed and distributed the petition A few sentences. She transported anti-regime materials from Prague and copied prohibited literature. She and her husband participated in the Velvet Revolution in Pilsen from the very beginning and participated in the creation of the local Civic Forum. They also contributed to the restoration of non-socialist advocacy. In February 1990 Anna became a member of the Czech National Council as part of the co-optations, the same year she defended her mandate in the ordinary elections for the Civic Forum. In 1992 and 1996 she was re-elected, this time for the Civic Democratic Party, which she co-founded. In January 1998, she joined the Union of Freedom. She initiated the establishment of the Faculty of Law of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen in 1993. She is currently retired (2020), but she continues to work as an assistant senator and also teaches at Křižík Grammar School in Pilsen.
Anna Röschová with Otakar Motejl, Jan Kalvoda, Jiří Novák, Cyril Svoboda and others on the occasion of the grand opening of the reconstructed Building of the Supreme Court in Brno
Anna Röschová with Otakar Motejl, Jan Kalvoda, Jiří Novák, Cyril Svoboda and others on the occasion of the grand opening of the reconstructed Building of the Supreme Court in Brno
