"Or I've been to Russia, for example, for a conference, and when the Westerners were there at the same time, the Westerners ate somewhere else than we did. Because even they, the ones who kept us in line, recognized that they were something more than us. For us it was enough, we had one knife altogether that we borrowed to cut our meat, because you weren't allowed to give a knife. That's an aruguia - a weapon."
"We were with Jirka at our home, here in the house. And our dad woke us up at four in the morning and said the Russians were here. We had just had a new road made there, asphalt, and I hurriedly ran to see the road, because I heard that they were coming, those armored tanks. I didn't know if they were going to shoot or what, so I was looking around the corner. Then when they crossed, I was stroking our road, which they had smashed with those tanks. Then the radio was on and there was a wonderful lady, Kamila Moučková, who was commenting on everything. We had the radio on all the time and we were crying because it was so strong. We could hear that they were shooting, and from time to time she always told us to be brave and not to provoke the soldiers. And that if we had the chance, we should explain to them that there was no counter-revolution here. We shouldn't provoke. Then they said that they were reporting again, and to be careful, that they were probably finished, that they were in the corridor. I don't remember exactly, I'd make it up as I went along, but it was clear that soon they would stop broadcasting, but other stations would start broadcasting, and that we were to defend the radios. So Jirka and I picked up and we hitchhiked to Hradec, as I told you the stations, but it was much faster hitchhiking, and we went to defend the radio in Hradec. And we were one of the last, if not the last radio station that was still broadcasting freely. And we waited there on this barricade that we made in front of the radio station, and I thought at the time that I was going to die today. Because they would come, and if we didn't want to leave, they would shoot. And I thought, as soon as they come, people will start running - and I mustn't run away. I mustn't run! And if I don't run, they'll shoot me. And I mustn't run! And they haven't come."
"The hardest thing for our dad was probably when they took the horses away. That’s my only real memory of something like that happening. I was sitting in the empty paddock, up on a post, and I could hear the sound of their hooves as they were being led away. Our dad especially loved Šárka—that was his horse—and she didn’t want to get on the train. They were taking her to a stud farm. Dad had to go and lead Šárka into the wagon himself, but she went mad on the way. She later gave birth to one more foal, but they had to put her down. Our parents took it really hard."
Michaela Vorlíčková, née Fišerová, was born on 19 June 1945 into, as she says, a wealthy family. Her grandmother came from the Kinský family and lived in a castle, while her grandparents on the other side built a nursery. In the 1950s, as part of collectivisation, the family had all their property and farms confiscated and could only keep the house they lived in. Michaela Vorlíčková was an ardent communist in her youth, recited at recitation competitions, led the Jiskřičky, etc. However, even this did not help her in the admission procedure at the grammar school, where she was not accepted for class reasons. Eventually, she entered the grammar school in Skuteč, where her sister, who was teaching there at the time, interceded on her behalf. After graduation, she was not invited to take the entrance exams, so she joined the pathology department at the hospital in Hradec Králové. After a year of working in pathology, she was not invited to take the entrance exams again, but she entered the zero year of medicine. After a year, she was admitted to the university in Brno, majoring in mathematics - physics. After her studies, she joined the Biophysical Institute of the Academy of Sciences, where she still works today. In August 1968, she defended the radio in Hradec Králové with her own body, but there was no clash with the soldiers of the occupying armies. In the course of her academic career she was forced to make minor concessions, but she never joined the Communist Party, nor did she sign an agreement with the entry of the occupation troops or speak out against Charter 77. In 2007, she was appointed a professor by President Václav Klaus. In 2024 she lived in Brno and still worked at the Institute of Biophysics of the Academy of Sciences.
Michaela Vorlíčková with her sisters. Michaela is on the left, the eldest Emanuela in the middle and Daniela on the right, who died of leukemia at the age of twenty-nine.
Michaela Vorlíčková with her sisters. Michaela is on the left, the eldest Emanuela in the middle and Daniela on the right, who died of leukemia at the age of twenty-nine.
