Under communism, the society lost the notion of giving, patronage and volunteering because people were forced to
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Georgina Sehnoutka Steinsky was born in Hradec Králové on June 16, 1946 as Jiřina Steinská. Her father Jan Steinsky Sehnoutka was born in Černožice. Her mother Jiřina Kohoutová was born in Litoměřice. The grandfather of the witness Rudolf Steinsky Sehnoutka owned five textile factories. The grandfather Jaroslav’s wife was the daughter of Cyril Barton of Dobenín, an important businessman in the textile industry. All textile companies and all the property were nationalized after the war. After February 1948, almost the entire family decided to emigrate. They illegally moved to the Federal Republic of Germany and eventually ended up in Toronto, Canada. Her grandfather, father and uncle set up a company in Canada to supply net curtains and curtains, especially to schools, hospitals, and rental houses. The business which supported the whole family. Georgina Steinsky studied history at the University of Toronto. She worked for 17 years in the state administration in the field of policy for medium and small entrepreneurs. She was the first woman to become a deputy minister of a large federal ministry. After 1989, she worked for the company Baťa, where she organized the company’s first acquisition in Czechoslovakia. From 1993 to 1995, she was the general director of Baťa stores in the Czech Republic. Then she returned to Canada, but she regularly travels to the Czech Republic. She is involved in the Civil Society Development Foundation and in various other non-profit projects. Georgina Steinsky received the Gratias Agit award in 2018. This award is given by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, especially directly by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, “for spreading the good name of the Czech Republic abroad.”
