Then I was afraid of cops my whole life
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Marcela Papežová, née Škoulová, was born on 1 August 1952 in Prague. Her father, Václav Škoula, was a lieutenant colonel in military intelligence, and her mother, Květoslava, worked as a speaker in a crematorium. During her childhood she lived with her parents and brother for two years in Moscow, where her father worked at the Czechoslovak embassy. In 1968 she experienced the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops and her first big sobering up. She married Zdeněk Papež, who was active in the Prague underground, and together they participated in cultural events of the independent scene. In March 1974, they went to a concert of the band The Plastic People of the Universe in Rudolfov near České Budějovice, where Marcela Papežová was the victim of a brutal intervention by the security forces. She was physically assaulted and repeatedly interrogated. In the following years, she copied samizdat texts and provided background for persecuted friends. Together with her husband, they owned a share in a farm in Krašovice, which became a centre of underground life, but also a place of frequent police checks. From the age of thirty-three, she worked as a speaker at the Prague crematorium, where she still works. In 2025 she received an award from the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic for her participation in the Third Resistance. At the time of the interview (2025), she was living in Prague, still owned a share in a cottage in Krašovice and maintained friendships with former underground culture members.
