I was not Hus, who would let himself be burned. But Comenius, and so I emigrated
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Ludmila Stáňová, née Kroužilková, was born on 17 May 1946 in Prague, the first-born daughter of Karel and Milena Kroužilková. Her father came from a mixed Christian-Jewish family and was transferred to the Klettendorf labour camp in Poland in 1944. He died suddenly of a stroke in September 1950, leaving behind his wife and two minor daughters. In 1964, the witness graduated from the Secondary School of Electrical Engineering and joined the VAKUS computer technology company. From 1967, she worked as an au pair in Great Britain and returned to Czechoslovakia after a year. In July 1969, she emigrated to Great Britain, receiving help from the Velehrad Compatriot Organisation. Gradually, she found a place to live and a job and married Antonín Stáně. She was convicted of illegally leaving the Czechoslovak state border in her absence and lost her Czechoslovak citizenship. She did not come back to Czechoslovakia until the Autumn of 1989. Since 2008, she has been active in the Velehrad Compatriot Organization. She was still living in the UK at the time of filming in spring 2023.
