Hana Borgströmová

* 1939

  • "At that time, it ended up like this- I wanted to take the university entrance exams when I had already been working for a year, and they did not accept me and did not give me a recommendation. Dad went to the secretariat and I went with him. It was in 1958. They told him that they do not wish children of "better parents" were studying, only the children of workers. And that my brother is already studying. So I didn't get a recommendation for university. My father was a communist, and he took his party legitimation and threw to their feet. I was there. I would not forget it until my death."

  • "In 1968, when the Russians came here, I lived in Zenske domovy and my friend and I went to work in the morning. I've been working from six. We had to go from Smíchov to the other side, I worked at Vyšehradská. People called us where we were going and we said we were going to work. We didn't know anything, neither she nor I. They said they occupied us and I said, 'Who? The Germans? ' I remember that. Why would I think about Russians? They fired at us, the bridges were occupied on both sides. I don't remember how we got to the other side. My friend ran away the next day. She didn't have a passport, she travelled with an ID card, and she didn't even have money. I gave her a thousand crowns. I didn't expect to see get them back someday. That's when her parents told me it was my fault she ran away, that if she didn't have the money, she wouldn't run away. I told them someone else would lend it to her. That was logical."

  • "I worked with authors of artworks and went to meetings with them. And once I came to the office and my manager was sitting there with another co-worker and a pile of money on the table. And when I came in, they pulled the pile under the table and I was fired. Other colleagues told me about them, that they take at least 15,000 for one artwork. These were bribes. In order to get their artworks into the subway, the artists bribed my colleagues, who were investors, also my senior. "And you weren't a part of it?" "No." That's why I was fired, and I still don't understand why I was fired since I didn't have witnesses. Even if I had said it somewhere, I had no evidence. I never reported it, I'm telling in someone for now for the first time. If I had said it somewhere then, I would probably have a penalty for it. I had no proof. So I don't understand why I was fired. "

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha , 03.03.2020

    (audio)
    duration: 01:19:35
    media recorded in project Memory of the Nation: stories from Praha 2
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Father officer, mother a kulak? We are not interested in you studying

Hana Borgströmová, 2020, current photography
Hana Borgströmová, 2020, current photography
photo: Post Bellum

Hana Borgströmová, nèe Vytlačilová, was born on November 24, 1939, in Žamberk. Her father Otto Vytlačil came from Pardubice, her mother Otýlie from the settlement Zákopanka next to Žamberk. Her father was a trained art locksmith, but an officer of the Czechoslovak People’s Army by profession. Until 1939, before Hana was born, the Vytlačils family lived in Poprad, Slovakia. After the separation of Czechoslovakia and the creation of the protectorate, they moved to Zákopanka near Žamberk. During the war, Oto Vytlačil joined the government army, whose units were called to Italy, where, according to Hana, he ran to the guerrillas fighting the Nazis. After the war, he joined the Communist Party and served in the garrison in Žamberk. Hana attended primary school in Žamberk, but completed it in Benešov near Prague, where the family moved in 1951 due to her father’s transfer. In 1957, she graduated from high school and wanted to apply to the Faculty of Education. However, her studies were not recommended due to the non-working class background of her parents- her mother was labelled as a kulak, her father was an officer. Later, she graduated remotely from an industrial high school of construction. After the Warsaw Pact Invasion in 1968, she travelled around Italy, wanting to emigrate to West Germany, but returned to Bohemia. She worked at the District Housing Company (OPBH) in Prague and at Metroprojekt in the investment department. Here, in 1979, she became an uncomfortable witness to bribery and was fired for alleged redundancy. She appealed to the court and won. She then worked at Metroprojekt until 1989. In 1984, she married a Swede, but continued to live in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. She left to live with her husband in 1990.