After 1948 we became second-rate citizens
Dana Seidlová, née Guthová, was born on 12 December 1929 in Čáslav. Her father Gaston Guth was a forest administrator at Hraběšín Hall, owned by Prince Schwarzenberg; his mother Helena tended to their home. Dana had two siblings - her brother Jiří was one year older and her sister Anna was 18 years younger. Her grandfather was the well-known author of books on etiquette, Jiří Stanislav Guth-Jarkovský, but the witness never met him in person. She spent her childhood at Hraběšín Hall, where the family also tended to the adjoining farm and fields. During the war they were able to secretly provide food to people from cities. Her father was targeted by informants, resulting in difficulties for his seventy-year-old mother-in-law Karolína Fraierová, who was held in custody by the Gestapo for three months. In 1944 the family was evicted to the castle in Vlachovo Březí by the appointed Nazi administrator. There they were liberated by the American army. After the war the Schwarzenbergs employed her father at Orlík Manor. She attended grammar school in Prague, where her aunt Vlasta Koseová introduced her to Girl Scouting. The family was hit hard by the Communist coup in 1948, which caused the Schwarzenbergs to leave the country; her father lost his job and the Communists made life hard for the Guths because they had worked for the bourgeoisie. Dana was not allowed to follow her dream of studying medicine. In 1969 and already married, Dana Seidlová emigrated with her family to Germany and then to Switzerland. She established a new tradition of Scout camps, started the Scout magazine Tamtam, and helped found a Czech supplementary school; she wrote articles for Zpravodaj Čechů a Slováků ve Švýcarsku (Bulletin of Czech and Slovaks in Switzerland). She also kept in touch with people in Czechoslovakia and supported the ideas of Charter 77. She was just as active in November 1989, when she and her friends supported the fall of the Communist regime. All through her life she worked as a nurse. In 2017 she moved to Prague.