Jarmila Ježová

* 1952

  • “That teacher was excellent. I got an A from her. Well, then she retired and we got a different teacher and it was terrible because my mum came home from a parent-teacher meeting where she had learnt that the whole class has Ds except for me and two other students who had Cs. She went to our class teacher immediately, telling him that she disagreed with that and asked for a check examination. And he said that he wasn't sure if I could handle it mentally, but my mother insisted. Well it was very funny. Because both the school superintendent, headmaster, class teacher, geography teacher and my mother, who had taken the time off, were present at the examination. And I was there, of course. It turned out interestingly; the superintendent couldn't hold himself back and told that teacher: ‘What did you give her a C for? This is an A. This is unheard of.’”

  • “They both just minded their own business. Grandpa would go to a Communist party meeting and grandma to Mass in Husice. They had a really nice marriage and every Communist meeting started with them asking when Mr. Kroupa was going to take down the crucifix above doors. After which Mr. Kroupa said that it wasn't his crucifix, that it was his wife's whom he respected and that he wouldn't take it down. So, every time there were some rewards, he had no chance of that. He would never get any. And then in 1968, when he saw that it was taking a whole different turn away from why he had joined the Party, he gave back his Party card. Because he was a really kind person.”

  • “When my mum got married, they applied for an apartment but they simply didn't get any. My father worked in the army and then at the Zetor company, hoping he would get an apartment from them but he was skillful and became a supervisor and so when they started giving out apartments to workers, he was left without any prospect yet again. And it was really bad at that point, because grandfather Kroupa, who had worked as a janitor, was retiring because he was sick and they passed my parents their one-room apartment in Francouzská street, my mother never got over that. And so my dad, despite the apartment being quite plain, had to leave his post at the ZKL where he had earned three times more than as he did as a janitor here.”

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    Brno, ZŠ Zemědělská, 17.11.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 02:01:01
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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If you have dreams, make them come true while you’re still young and able to

Jarmila Ježová around 1954
Jarmila Ježová around 1954
photo: Osobní archiv pamětníka

Jarmila Ježová was born September 23, 1952. Her young parents had troubles tackling their complicated housing situation, which is why they moved to live with Jarmila’s grandparents. Her grandfather worked as a janitor at the now called Masaryk primary school in Brno where he got a service apartment. Jarmila lived there with them until 1981. After graduating from primary school, she studied at a gymnasium in Ivančice for one year but had to interrupt her studies because of health problems. She then trained to be a pharmacy saleswoman and after receiving her certificate she started a school of economics in Kounicova street in Brno, which she completed in 1976. She married Milan Ježa while studying at secondary school; their daughter was born one year before her leaving exams and their son a couple years later. In 2020 she lived in a house in Řečkovice. She was still friends with her neighbors from Černé pole and what made her most happy were her plants for which she cared for with love.