At the Jewish Museum, she got to know the atmosphere of spying
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Hana Mayerová was born on August 6, 1957 in a Jewish family in Prague. Before she started school, she grew up in Mariánské Lázně with her German-born step-grandmother. From childhood she spoke fluent German, and later learned English and Hebrew. Her father was an associate professor at the nuclear chemistry department and a member of the Communist Party. Nevertheless, the family observed Jewish holidays and traditions and attended services in the synagogue. Hana Mayerová was interested in Judaism from her childhood, and after returning to her parents in Prague, she regularly visited the Jewish community, especially various sports and cultural events and lectures organized for the youth. At that time, she experienced the change in the atmosphere towards the Jewish community after the severing of diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and Israel in 1967, the ideologically motivated attacks on the Jewish community, described by the regime’s propaganda as the “seedbed of Zionism”, and the installation of pro-regime community leaders. After completing ninth grade, she graduated from high school, then married and had a child. Because of her activities in the Jewish community, her non-conformist and publicly expressed views, and her friendship with some of the signatories of Charter 77, she was first summoned to the State Security in June 1977. She soon left Prague and moved back to Mariánské Lázně, from where she commuted to Cheb for work. She remained under State Security surveillance even after her change of residence. In Mariánské Lázně, she was regularly visited by State Security officers from Prague or Plzeň. In March 1985, she married for the second time (to the then Prague rabbi Daniel Mayer) and returned to Prague, where she worked in the Jewish Museum in the publicity department, also guiding foreign visitors. In the museum she experienced the atmosphere of spying and denunciation among the staff, eavesdropping by the State Security, which also offered her paid cooperation several times, which she refused. Nevertheless, she had to attend meetings in various conspiratorial apartments all over Prague. In 1990, her husband resigned as rabbi of Prague and a year later the whole family moved to Haifa, Israel.
