In the interrogation, they told me: Don’t be rude. We can take your baby away from you
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Ivana Šteflová, née Černá, was born on May 23, 1955 in České Budějovice. Her mother Růžena Černá worked as a nurse and her father Ivan Černý as a mechanic. When she was about eight years old, her parents divorced. After 1968, her father emigrated to Switzerland. From the age of fifteen, she attended so-called tea parties - afternoons listening to music and concerts in České Budějovice and its surroundings. In March 1974, at the age of 18, she experienced a brutal dispersal of a concert in the Na Americe pub in Rudolfov near České Budějovice. After the Na Americe massacre, the atmosphere in the town changed, the political climate turned dark and the communist regime went after the young, who were described as maniacs because of their distinctive appearance. During this time, she began to commute to Krašovice, where like-minded people bought a semi-dilapidated farmhouse and worked together to build a free community and cultural center. Underground supporters and dissidents gathered in Krašovice, thanks to which the so-called underground house and its inhabitants soon came under the State Security’s radar. In Krašovice she met her future husband Jaromír Štefl, one of the owners of the cottage. They married in 1978 and lived in Krašovice for some time. Ivana Šteflová and her husband often had to go to interrogations or were interrogated by State Security officers directly in Krašovice. The worst interrogation she experienced was in 1979, when their mutual friend and co-owner of Krašovice, Rudolf Hruška, emigrated. She was pregnant at the time and State Security officers threatened to take the child away from her after it was born. She and her husband experienced harassment and persecution until 1989. In 2023, Ivana Šteflová received the award for anti-communist resistance (Third Resistance) from the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic. At the time of the interview (2025), she lived in České Budějovice.
