Alžběta Cibochová

* 1950

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  • "We had tanks on one side of Pařížská street and they kept pointing at our windows. If we went to the window and someone shouted something out the window, they would shoot at the houses. I experienced that. Then there was also a man walking there and he had something hidden behind his jacket. They immediately pounced on him, pushed him into our house, and he took out a salami. He had a whole cone of salami, he got it somewhere, bought it, and they thought he had a stick. Well, three of these Russians went in there with him. And I said, well, that's terrible, I saw it from the window, so I ran down. Somebody in the house told me, don't go in there, you'll get it with a stick too, or they'll beat you, they'll shoot you. I said they can't do that. You're not even afraid to stand up for another person anymore, but it was borderline. If you go in there and try to help somebody, you can lose your life."

  • "That was in '69, when we were in Prague, the year after 1968. And at Myslbek, that's at Příkopy, there was a little gap, there was a little pool there, and there were protests not against the Russians, but rather against our policemen. Because they were after us. They had... They were throwing these tear bombs at us, and because they were defective or something, so as they were throwing them over, where they landed, we were picking them up and throwing them back. It didn't explode until the second throw. So then it was about the 96th. Then they chased us down Wenceslas Square, they chased us into a building too, they were beating it all with batons, it was pretty bad. But every time we went into a building, people would open the door and tell us to go hide. They left us there."

  • "Well, mainly we were not allowed to travel, there were no books to read, we had little information. But I had... Well, the way I was experiencing it, it was quite difficult. But because we had a lot of friends, we had access to both the art that was out there. People who got out brought some magazines and records, so we listened to other people's music. I had a friend in Hanover who I made in 1968, who told me I could stay with her, and we've remained friends since 1968. She came every two years and I went there a couple of times too, so at least we had some contact with the world, mainly through friends and acquaintances."

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    Praha, 17.10.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 01:03:24
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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The chick in the mental hospital was called Comrade

Alžběta Cibochová as a five-year-old on a trip
Alžběta Cibochová as a five-year-old on a trip
photo: Archive of the witness

Alžběta Cibochová was born on December 30, 1950 in Prague. She lived with her parents in Pařížská Street, her father was an artist and worked at the Orbis publishing house in Vinohrady. Alžběta Cibochová graduated from the secondary general education school in Žižkov. She graduated in 1969 and continued her studies at the art high school on Hollar Square in the field of promotional graphics. She applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in the field of restoration, but was not accepted there, so she graduated from the Faculty of Education at Charles University. After her studies, she began working at the Special School in Prague 9. She spent ten years there, then began teaching at the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital. She never joined the Party. She married twice, her first husband died shortly after the wedding. She had two sons with her second husband. After the revolution, she worked for twenty years as a director of a special school. Now retired, she still works with mentally handicapped children, meeting with them at the Divizna clubhouse in Počernice. In 2024 she lived in Prague.