"And when I was released from there, of course, I took the train to Budějovice, where I was obligatorily assigned to my aunt, who already had Jindřiška. And there I immediately got a sort of imaginary punch in the face, because when I knocked... my mother had told me before, when I would visit my aunt, what I had to do and how I had to behave, good manners, as they say. So I was eager to do whatever my aunt wanted, but she wouldn't even let me cross the doorstep and told me they'd had enough with just one bastard and to go wherever I wanted. I was only 15, no, I was 16 by then."
"I think I was there for about a month or six weeks, but I enjoyed one bath during the time I was there. There were four women in one washtub, a wooden one, that's where they herded us, that's where we stripped. Can you imagine? When you don't have any hygiene products? Nothing? We didn't have soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, nothing. I didn't have anyone to send it to because I didn't even have anyone to write to. So I guess we must have smelled pretty terrible and been pretty dirty. And now we were undressing in front of these guards, who of course stood there and made fun of how ugly and smelly we were. That's an unbelievable humiliation. I've never been so humiliated in my life. Well, but we were allowed to wash ourselves after, after that one month, four of us in that wooden bathtub."
"Kadlček, or at least that's how he introduced himself, said that he had taken my dad across the border, that my dad paid him to take us, and that we had about a week to think about it, or else he was leaving and we would stay here. And because, of course, I felt terribly wronged. I suppose I was being incredibly selfish beyond reason in saying that I wanted to go abroad, that I wanted to study, that my dad had always promised me that I would study abroad somewhere, he had promised me that, because he said he hadn't had that chance himself. It's gonna be you. So it was like, I would say, this flame that lived in me that just drove me forward somewhere, and I told my mom we were going to go abroad. And she didn't want to, Mummy went along only because my pressure, I really have to tell it like it was, and I think I regretted it afterwards for her and my sister's sake, that I had forced her to do it, not because I was locked up, but because Mummy and my sister did. It was my dream that I wanted to pursue at any cost and any sacrifice, so I really forced them, and I regret it to this day. And the interesting thing is, I don't regret the prison or anything afterwards. I think of it as an incredible life experience. I don't feel sorry for myself. I don't remember having a tear in my eye, poor me. I wasn't the poor one. I underwent it because I stomped out that dream trip, that dream stay at school, and that was kind of the punishment for it."
Miloslava Kelblová was born on 16 March 1936 in Purkarc near Hluboká nad Vltavou. From the age of five, she lived with her parents, Marie and Karel Krůta, in Prague. After the war, her father became a forensic expert and provided the family with a very good financial support. In 1951, Karel Krůta emigrated to Austria. The same year, Miloslava Kelblová, her mother, sister and uncle attempted to cross the border illegally. All of them were detained and subsequently imprisoned. Miloslava Kelblová served a prison sentence of six months. After her return from prison in 1952, as a former political prisoner, she was employed only in the lowest positions at the hospital in České Budějovice, after which she worked her way up to dental instrumenter. In 1953, due to the financial situation, she left the health sector for the catering industry. From 1969, she was a bartender. In the 1990s, she ran a bartending school and wrote several professional books. She was married twice and had one son, Dalibor. In 2024, she lived in Litvínovice near České Budějovice.
