In exile, she became chief of the Paris Sokol
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Jiřina Bystrická was born on 16 July 1936 in Poděbrady into the family of an architect who was a legionary in Russia during the First World War. Her mother died shortly after Jiřina was born. The family lived in Prague until the end of the Second World War, then moved to Poděbrady, where Jiřina Bystrická graduated from primary school and grammar school. In the 1950s she studied philology at Charles University in Prague, majoring in Russian and Bulgarian. In Czechoslovakia she first worked as an interpreter and guide, travelling with Czechoslovak tourists to Bulgaria and the Soviet Union. After her marriage to Jiri Bystrický, she lived for three years in the Soviet Union in the scientific town of Dubno between Moscow and Leningrad, where her husband, a nuclear scientist and mathematician, worked. In 1968, the occupation of Czechoslovakia caught the couple on a business trip to Switzerland. On the spot, they decided to emigrate to France. At first, Jiřina Bystrická took care of the children at home, then she studied library science and worked in this field in Paris. Immediately after arriving in France, she became actively involved in the activities of the local Sokol. These included regular exercises on the Sokol meadow near Paris, Sokol annual balls and lunches, a programme for children and youth of Czech origin, summer camps, etc. Later she became the chief of the Paris Sokol and participated in the organization of Sokol meetings in France and other countries of Western Europe. In the 1980s, she spent some time in Canada and the United States, where her husband Jiří worked. They have two sons and a daughter. She and her husband settled in the town of Gif-sur-Yvette.
