Linda Tomaščik

* 1978

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To grow up in a free world where they don’t force Lenin down our throats

Graduation photo of Linda Tomaščik from 1996
Graduation photo of Linda Tomaščik from 1996
photo: Witness archive

Linda Tomaščik was born on 6 June 1978 in Mladá Boleslav. When she was two years old, her parents decided to emigrate to Austria. They had several reasons for leaving Czechoslovakia, but the main one was that her father had signed Charter 77. They feared that he would get arrested because the regime persecuted signatories mercilessly. So they applied for emigration, and in 1980, they left for Vienna with their three children. In the beginning, they received help from the emigrant and journalist Ivan Medek. The father ran a magazine in Austria. They gradually settled in the new country, but soon the Revolution reached Czechoslovakia, and the parents wanted to return home. So in 1992, the family moved back to their native country. Linda was 14 years old at the time and had a hard time getting used to the Czech environment. She felt the differences mainly in school - in the approach to teaching or in the different mentality. However, she eventually managed to establish a home in the Czech Republic. She graduated from the Josef Pekař Gymnasium in Mladá Boleslav and then studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. There she met her future husband, with whom they had two daughters. At the time of filming in 2022, Linda Tomaščik lived in Poděbrady.