Marie Tykalová

* 1931

  • “She didn’t say it only because she thought she couldn’t take it any longer, then she thought to herself: ‘What would happen to my Mařenka?’ So she said: ‘No, I sew it myself, I sew it all by myself.’ She was imprisoned. But she survived, and she came back.”

  • “You know, I am ashamed that I was so stupid. But this is how I was raised. There were many good communists around me who helped. And when someone very clever said that… I can’t now, I am thrown off my balance. You see, it is no easy to remember it, when all your ideals fall down. I thought the communists would serve as models for people, namely that they would raise the children well, that they will teach them to hold together.”

  • “I was baptised. But when I started attending the technical secondary school — or when was this — we had to leave the church. But I still believed. So I asked, ‘My God, forgive me, but they would kick me out of the school and my father is so particular about me attending the school.’”

  • “[There was - ed.] also some Communist movement there, and Jan Harus lived there. Do you know the name? He was a very selfless Communist worker, but then he [behaved badly - ed.] to his wife. It got into his head as well. You see, men and women are like that, they get things in their head. So it got into his head as well. He divorced his wife and threatened her, just you dare, and so on.”

  • “These were poor Jews. They often complained to my mum. I also used to bring them food. You see, these are things I don’t recall very often but once reminded, I remember them. The Jewish woman told my mum that the Jews who knew that they had money to flee, sew little pockets into their coats. And there they had money or gold. Mostly gold. The Jewish woman said, ‘You see, they know how poor I am and they won’t give me anything.’”

  • “So we lived in Radlice, and actually, [I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother - ed.]... Look, I don’t hold it against her, because my father was great. Mum was first and foremost a CPC functionary. You see, the part was something completely different during the First Republic. I don’t exactly know why it is that when an idea becomes a state ideology, it loses almost all of its ideals. And the Communist Party managed that terrifically.”

  • Full recordings
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    Praha, 06.12.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 01:38:01
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Praha, 28.03.2018

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    duration: 54:20
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
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When an idea becomes a state ideology, it loses almost all its ideals

Marie Tykalová, 2018
Marie Tykalová, 2018

Marie Tykalová was born on 26 January 1931 in Radlice near Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia. Her mother was a pre-war member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) and an ardent support of the communist ideal, and so she devoted much of her attention to the CPC and tried to help it in various ways. During World War II she and her daughter joined the Communist resistance. Marie acted as a messenger, passing on information and distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. After the war she completed a secondary technical school and worked at a vocational school. However, she was later expelled from the CPC and had to earn a living sweeping the streets. After 1989 she was active in the Czech Union of Freedom Fighters in Prague 5.