"I remember that on that critical night, I woke up sometime after midnight with a deafening roar and gunshots. I woke up not knowing what was happening, I turned on the radio and it was clear. Since I knew that very few people would get to the children's hospital, I got on my motorbike and rode from Jiřího z Poděbrad Square along Vinohradská Street towards Strašnice, and then I rode through Štěrboholy to Dolní Počernice. And I remember, I don't know whether it was four o'clock or five o'clock in the morning, I was riding and the tanks were rolling down the street towards the radio station. And I felt like an ant against that mass. But I got there, and I know we stayed there for a few days at that time because the transport didn't work and so on and somebody had to... there were fifty children and somebody had to look after them. So we stayed there, the ones that got there, we stayed there like on a desert island."
"Once, when I was examining a small child, Jiřinka Šiklová suddenly burst in without knocking and had a bundle of papers in her hands. It was her nature to supply us with various samizdat and literature, but this time she burst in, threw the papers on my desk and said: 'Quick, hide it somewhere!' And before I knew it, I didn't know what was going on, the kid was a bit scared too, sitting there, didn't know what was going on, so I took the papers, put them in the desk drawer with some psychological tests, and she said, 'And hide me too.' There was a bookcase, behind which there was a free space with a ficus tree. I pulled the ficus tree away, and pushed her behind it. It was a race against time, consisting of the fact that I had the child there and she was hidden behind the ficus tree. And I was waiting to see what was coming, if somebody was coming. Indeed, after some time without knocking, somebody came into the room, a man peeked in and asked, 'Do you have anybody here?' I said, 'Yes, as you can see, I have a child here, I'm examining, I need you to leave, you can't disturb us while we're doing this.' So he left, and I was nervous about who could hold out longer."
"That was actually a film critical of what society was doing at the time, which was collective education. A family seemed suspicious simply because it wasn't transparent. It was a private territory and the regime at the time was eager to control everything. And there was the idea that if we took hold of these children at an early age, we could shape them in the image of the new socialist society. I have to admit that we still work with this film to this day, for example, when we prepare applicants for adoption or foster care, we often show them this film as an introduction. The topic is still alive. I am also aware of how many of these things had to be said in the film only in an oblique way at the time. For example, the criticism of the nursery was rather discreet."
"They wanted the children, there were three children in the family, they wanted to take them away from the family, allegedly in order to save them, they wanted to put them in an orphanage. And there were two of us, we stood two against each other, another expert, a doctor, who strongly advocated that they should be taken away from the family because otherwise they would be deformed. And I came out just as clearly, but in the opposite direction, saying that these children were, as I had seen, strongly emotionally attached to their parents and to take them away from their families would be traumatic for them, referring precisely to Dr Matějček's work on psychological deprivation. I know that it turned out badly at the time, that they were taken away, and I was sorry, because the emotional bond between the child and the parents is above all else, it is something of a priority for me. I wondered if I could have done anything more... But I couldn't. There were situations and moments like that."
"There was a teacher at lower secondary school, I wish her well if she is still alive, she was committed to re-educate me. She tried in a good way and in a bad way, in class in front of the children, when we were alone, she invited my father, or both parents to the school, she kept telling them: 'You have a clever boy, but if you want him to prosper, don't prevent him from progressing to studies and stop educating him religiously.' I think she had some kind of commitment, maybe even with a reward, I don't know. My father left her a Bible. In discussions, I wasn't there, she made these sort of cheap, prejudiced arguments to him about the Bible being delusional and unscientific. When he asked, 'Have you even read it?' she agreed to read it so he gave her one. I think she stopped after that, I think she gave up."
Jaroslav Šturma was born on 23 November 1944 in Hořice in the foothills of the Giant Mountains, where his parents Emilie and Jaroslav Šturma came from. His father was a civil servant with very broad interests who led his son to study languages, to interest in history and to faith. His mother worked as a nurse, and his maternal grandmother Frymlová was one of the first female paediatricians in our country. When Jaroslav Šturma interrupted his studies of Romance languages at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University for financial reasons, he took a job as a carer in children’s psychiatric hospital. Soon, influenced by family tradition and the film “Children without Love” (Děti bez lásky), he decided to change his field of study; he studied psychology at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. Already during his studies he followed Professor Zdeněk Matějček and in 1967 he joined the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital in Dolní Počernice as a psychologist, and stayed there until 1987. Then, they went together with Matějček to work in the paediatric clinic at the Department of Paediatrics of the Institute for Further Medical Education. During his professional career he encountered the removal of children from unreliable families and the constant presence of the State Secret Police. After the Velvet Revolution, he founded the Children’s Centre Paprsek to support families of children with disabilities, where he still works as a psychologist. Today, the activities of Paprsek are very extensive, including Professor Matějček’s Family Centre focused on foster family care. Jaroslav Šturma is a member of many domestic and foreign professional organisations and is the author of a number of professional publications. He is engaged in lecturing activities in academia and for the general public and has educated generations of psychotherapists. He has received many awards. He lived in Prague at the time of filming.
