“I arrived home just several days ago. It was not time to start the semester yet, it was in the middle of September. Suddenly a person rang the bell. Back then, it was not common not to open the door, so I opened it. We lived in a block of flats. A man was asking if he could come in. I told him to come in. It took me some time to realize who he was. After the conversation which took half an hour, I found out that I was suspicious because I had come back. Because it was clear the moment questions like why I came back, what I brought and whom I should get in touch with started. It was clear to me. That is why I told him I had not unpacked my luggage yet and to come and have a look. And yes, I should get in touch with some friends. It was fairly unpleasant. Most of the time, it sounded as if he was threatening me with how it was possible that I had returned. You have relatives there. I mean, we know everything about you, how it is possible you had come back. You need it because you have not finished studying yet, why do you care about it, only your mum lives here and she could probably get to you. So, I come back to the Republic, I almost look like a fool to my relatives in America because I go back to such chaos, and I am not wanted and suspicious here because I had returned. After this disgusting half an hour I rushed to the phone and wanted to share my impression with my mum who was at work. And my mum said: ‘Do not tell me anything, one of them also came here.‘ So it had been precisely timed because I had the visit at home exactly while my mum at work had the same visit asking the same questions about why I had come back. Well, it was extremely unpleasant.”
“We then went to a requiem mass in Osek which was dispersed by the police. Dispersed is not the exact world. When we were leaving the mass, the main entrance was blocked by a lorry. All of us had to go through the gate and of course, everyone was beaten by a baton. We ran away in all directions. We were wandering in the fields at night. We were afraid to get on the train. There, for the first time in my life I got to know what fear of physical pain and violence that one cannot avoid was. As I was instinctively protecting my glasses I was hit in the shoulder and could not move my arm. I went to the faculty doctor with a stupid excuse saying I had fallen somewhere. He looked at me: ‘Were you in Osek? Well, I will not report it. Tell your friends not to be afraid to come, in case they are hurt.‘ That was basically the first time I encountered brute power, and that you can be afraid when it is this bad. I did not know it would affect me so much. When I came to Osek years later during a completely innocent trip and saw the monastery and entered the yard, I admit that my teeth chattered. My experience was deeper than I had ever admitted to myself.”
“January 1969 is a nightmare for me. The student strike was behind us. Mr. Smrkovský came to debate with us. We were still hoping that something would happen. And we probably did not want to admit to ourselves that nothing would happen. That everything would in fact peter out that it would end up even worse than it was before. I know that I did the exam on Children´s literature on the afternoon of 16 January. We had a really good relationship, so we waited for each other, and we finished in the afternoon. And suddenly one of our teachers staggered out of the office and said: ‘For God’s sake, something happened in Prague, a student self-immolated. Back then, just provisional halls of residence were in Ústí, there was only one little room with a television in it, so we were stuffed in front of the TV, wide-eyed because of what was going on. Back then, communication and phones meant a problem. We happened to have a phone at home. In the evening, there was an invitation for me to come to the post office. That is why I wondered what was going on. My mum called me crying. She said: ‘For God’s sake, promise me, that you will not do anything like this.‘ That it is not a solution. And what about the parents of that boy? Well, everyone was down because of it. We considered going to Prague for the funeral. Our Prague colleagues asked people from smaller towns not to come because the situation in Prague would be hard to manage. Because of it, we stayed in Ústí where a huge commemoration ceremony took place on the square. I can still hear the sirens of the factories in Ústí nad Labem - and there were a lot of them. It was gloomy and raining. The dean of our faculty, by coincidence a historian, spoke there on the balcony. We then got to know that it was the last straw of his career. His speech together with the fact that he was in charge during the so-called emergency years cost him his job because I remember that he ended his speech by saying that he was proud to be a graduate of the faculty where Jan Palach studied. So, until this day when I remember these moments, they give me shivers. We were all down because of it.”
photo: The photo was taken during the recording in Pilsen
photo: The photo was taken during the recording in Pilsen
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Jaroslava Wollerová was born in September 1947 in Domažlice. She is a daughter of Alois Woller and Anna Wollerová, née Rádlová. She graduated from Secondary General School in Domažlice. After her Secondary school leaving exam, she studied at the Faculty of Education in Ústí nad Labem, and she later transferred to the Faculty of Arts in Olomouc. She graduated in the Czech language, and History Teaching She experienced liberation during the Prague Spring in Ústí nad Labem in 1968 and the subsequent beginning of normalisation. After graduation, she worked as a secondary school teacher at the Grammar School in Domažlice from 1972. She joined Civic Forum in November 1989. On 28 February 1990, she was co-opted to the position of chairwoman onto the Town National Committee in Domažlice. She was elected the mayor of Domažlice based on the result of the first free local election in Autumn 1990. She worked in the function for two terms of office until 1998. She later went back to teaching at the Grammar School in Domažlice, she worked there as a teacher even after her retirement. She became a member of the Civic Democratic Party. She has liked to travel her whole life.
