Jitka Malíková

* 1926  †︎ 2018

  • "The prison wardens called the female prisoners that had been sentenced by the regional courts for criminal activities 'whores'. Their view was that these women were virtuous because they offered sexual services for compensation in the national currency, the Czechoslovak crowns. On the contrary, we, the 'political' prisoners, were in their view 'dollar whores'."

  • "I helped Cyril Stavěl to get out of Prague. That was at the time when they were clamping down on the monks. They found him somewhere on the street and changed his clothes. Then they brought him to our place. He slept over at my place and I gave him a shirt and a tie and took him to Komořany at about five o'clock in the morning. I took him to Komořany because all the major Prague train stations were guarded by the police. In Komořany, he caught a train to Jihlava and then he got to Tišnov where he originated. There, he managed to cross the border and get to Italy where they had a Czech cloister."

  • "I had a pretty funny arrest. They arrested me in the Axa hotel that has a swimming pool. I was studying medicine back then and we were just having a swimming course in Axa. They dragged me right out of the pool."

  • "It was funny, I refused to sign that protocol to that officer. I sat there until about six o'clock. One of my friends attended her graduation ceremony and we met there. So the officer would type: 'at an illegal meeting at doctor Matušková's place'. 'What was the subject of your conversation'? I told him: 'What do you think? What do people talk about when they celebrate their graduation from school? They sing and contemplate philosophical topics'. We had a student meeting at Albertov before that. I told him: 'We had a meeting at Albertov'. I described what we had done at Albertov and they wrote it down. The protocol says: 'They were plotting the change of the reform of the educational system after the overthrow of the popular-democratic regime at an illegal session at doctor Matušková's place where Hošek and Strýček were also present (who had been arrested by that time already). I'm not joking, that's what it said. Therefore, I refused to sign that nonsense. So I sat there until six o'clock, but I finally had to sign it. After I signed it, I told the officer: 'Next time, you may put in the protocol that I poisoned Gottwald. I will sign it as well."

  • "Those who feared them the most were the ones to be most severely persecuted. When I was arrested they took me for an interrogation at Bartolomějská. They kept asking me about the relationships between the priests and the women in the group. They started with Mádr, asking about his relationship with the women. I defended him. Then they told me to stand up against a wall, so I stood there. I told myself that I wouldn't let them do this again. The next time, I was interrogated in Ruzyně prison. The interrogating officer asked me if I had an affair with Jiří Holub. I told him: 'Yes, I have four children with him'. After this, they never asked me again if I had an affair with somebody from the group."

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    Praha, 01.01.2006

    (audio)
    duration: 02:26:09
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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Those who feared them the most were the ones to be most severely persecuted

Photo from papers of State security
Photo from papers of State security
photo: ABS ČR

  Jitka Malíková was born in Prague in 1926 to the family of a small businessman. She studied at a grammar school and then went on to study medicine at university. In her childhood she used to be a scout. After scouting was banned by the Nazis during the times of the Protectorate, she became a member of a Catholic group led by the priest Josef Zvěřina. After her graduation in 1947, she studied medicine. She became involved in the activities of various Catholic student groups. After the Communist coup in 1948 and the establishment of an official collaborating Catholic organization these groups became illegal but persisted in their activities nonetheless. Their members were subsequently arrested. Jitka Malíková was arrested for the first time in the autumn of 1951. She was released shortly after her arrest. However, she was arrested again in 1953 and after six months of investigation, she was sentenced to 11 years of prison for high treason. She was convicted as the leader of an anti-state group. After she had filed an appeal with the court, her term was reduced to 9 years. Even after the end of the trial, she was kept in custody and interrogated. Then she was confined in the labor and corrective camp in Želiezovice, Trnovce, Ilava and in the Pardubice prison. She was released from prison in the course of an amnesty in 1960. After her release, she was only allowed to work in manual-workers’ professions and eventually she was employed as an assistant laboratory worker in the Motol hospital. She subsequently graduated from a laboratory school and from 1967 she worked as a laboratory technician in a hospital at Charles Square, where she remained until her retirement. Jitka Malíková passed away on May, the 6th, 2018