Helena Třeštíková

* 1949

  • “I believe I actually experienced quite an interesting period of the 20th century, at least now I feel that way. When I was a child I was a bit angry that I don’t live in an romantic environment I knew from books, like Kája Mařík and similar, and live in the Wenceslas square, and only now I realise that it was probably the most romantic location I could spend my youth in, as it was the centre of all action during my growing up. There were various marches and I terribly liked it and I totally loved the celebrations of the 1st of May and sat at the window all through that watching it with much excitement. And what was curious, that such communist festivities were perceived by my parents and grandma in a rather negative way. As my grandma lost a lot of money during the currency reform, which she inherited after her father, she much disliked the communists and so did my parents. But they were wise enough not to talk me out of it and when we sometimes talked about it, they just casually remarked: ,You will surely learn, when you grow up.‘”

  • “My parents came to me and we planned holidays together in Germany and Switzerland at some friends, which they have been planning for a terribly long time; also it was the first journey to the West for me. They arrived on August 19, we set off, and on August 21 the Russians came. It was a terrible moment as we had no clue, what was going on. We were at our friends at Saarbrücken, and we watched it on television, there were pictures of the Wenceslas square, our neighbourhood, and tanks standing there, it was just awful. We called grandma to Prague and she said:,We are all right, you better stay there and don’t come back!‘ So we continued to Switzerland as planned. The country was full of refugees from Czechoslovakia running from the Russians in terror. And Switzerland, otherwise very reserved to accept any emigrants, did something amazing; it opened their arms to all Czechs offering staying, managing all formalities, which they always refused to do. So that was an ideal opportunity to stay there.”

  • “My parents began to consider that seriously as they had rather bad experience living here. My dad, who was a lawyer, worked as a painted for ten years due to political reasons. So he also experienced a lot himself. So they were thinking of it and I said that under no circumstances I will stay elsewhere and wish to return. And I kept that attitude. They finally decided to go back too. I kept working for the family there as agreed for about a month, before another au-pair arrived. But I could not wait to go back to the poor dirty Czechoslovakia, where in comparison to the shiny West everything was imperfect, but made sense to me and when I was crossing the borders taking a train back, I cried and promised myself I would never leave my country and stay whatever happens, good or bad, just everything, as it is a little corner, where I was born and wish to stay as nowhere else.”

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    ZŠ Strossmayerovo náměstí 4, 21.03.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 40:17
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Whenever you gain something, you also lose and vice versa

35385-photo.jpg (historic)
Helena Třeštíková

Helena Třeštíková, née Böhmová, was born on 22 June, 1949 in Prague. She spent her childhood at the Wenceslas square. She grew up in a cultural and inspirational environment. She graduated during the Prague Spring. After the middle school she went to the Western Germany in summer 1968 as an au-pair to get praxis necessary to get accepted to the FAMU. While her parents visited her in Bonn, the Warsaw pact armies marched to Czechoslovakia. After returning from Germany she worked as a production assistant. In September 1969 she began the documentary movie studies at the FAMU. The society was going through a phase of disillusion and depression. She searched for a theme to elaborate even in such difficult times. She was interested in development of human characters and lives in a long-term period and so she concluded the so called time-collecting method. In 1980 she began shooting the Marriage etudes; within the project she followed several husbands for six years. Using the method she also shot her other documentaries. Amongst the most famous there are Katka, René, Marriage etudes after 2é years, Marcela, Mallory and Lída Baarová - Destruction by beauty. For the documentaries she was awarded several prizes. She also teaches at the FAMU.