Jarmila Stibicová (1933)

When you left the house, you never knew whether you'd come back again.

Jarmila Stibicová was born on the 14th of August 1933 in Turkovice, near Pardubice. She studied Czech, Russian and English at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. She taught at a secondary school in Pardubice until January 1970. Earlier, in 1969, she had been convicted for distributing pamphlets on the anniversary of the 21st of August 1968 (night of the invasion of Warsaw Pact intervention forces - transl.). She received a deferred sentence of six months of jail with a two year probation period. After losing her job at the school she worked part-time as a cleaning lady, and gave private English lessons. In 1977 she signed Charter 77, after which she was not allowed to teach at all, and her attempts to find work elsewhere were unsuccessful. She remained a cleaning lady until November 1989, under persecution the whole of that time. She and her husband Jaromír were foremost among the Chartists in East Bohemia, she was also active in other efforts, for instance in the Dem ... 

Activity and consequences