"They came for us quickly. We didn't know what was going on. Grandma and Grandpa were crying. My aunt. I said, 'What's going on?' And it was happening there too. But they came for us quickly. And they took us away from Kyselka, they took us home quickly from our vacation. So that was quite an experience. As children, we had no idea what was going on in 1968. I was twelve years old. It was just... Only later did people begin to realize that something had changed."
"On May Day, we all had to go. We went to Letná. But we ran away and went to the zoo instead. As a child, I remember that we set off from here, carrying May Day decorations, ribbons. We held on to those ribbons and marched in a procession to Čakovice. That's where the villages joined together. And the big May Day celebration was in Čakovice. On Beran Square. Now it's a parking lot or a park, something like that. And Beran Square is named after my uncle, who died in the war. He never returned, no one knew what happened to him. And that's why it's called Beran Square."
"And that monument, that plaque, it was here in the kindergarten between the windows when it was a school. And there stood – I remember that too – there always stood an honor guard. A boy and a girl, pioneers. And after class we took turns. It was always on May 9. It was a big holiday. And first, I don't know if they still walk with lanterns... I don't know, the lantern parades were revived at some point. I don't know if they still do it, but there used to be a lantern parade every year. From the playground to the park. Some children used them as shopping bags when they left. Some of them burned down."
Magdalena Kuclerová was born on October 1, 1954, in Prague. She spent almost her entire life in Třeboradice, Prague. In the 1950s, the communist regime closed down the shop that belonged to her grandparents. Her father was considered a politically unreliable citizen by the Communist Party and was forced to join the Auxiliary Technical Battalions (PTP). He was assigned to work on the construction of an airport and was later transferred to Jáchymov, where he worked in the uranium mines. His wife was a staunch communist, so politics was not discussed much at home. Magdalena Kuclerová trained as a saleswoman and later added a qualification as a cook and waitress. She has worked at the Třeboradice nursery school her entire life. In 2025, she was living in Třeboradice.
