Marie Veberová

* 1946

Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
21. 8. 1968 - Invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, 17. 11. - 29. 12. 1989 - The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
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    In the Tatra works, batons were being made to be used against demonstrators

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    "We had an upholstery workshop there. Before the introduction of laminate seats, leather seats were being made, so all the material was there. And so they began to sew batons filled with sand there." - "When was this?"- "That was about the second or third day after Albertov, after November 17. At that time there was talk that they wanted to call in the army. The militias were terrible." – “Was there some kind of mass production of those batons filled with sand?” – "I think they must have made around 100,150 of them there, they were all set. They were radical men and women. They could use it on local people. It wasn't by order, the militiamen had just decided to do so."

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    Because of a part-time job I was interrogated by the State Security. They just wanted to scare me

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    "... So I would always spend two hours after my eight hour shift working a part-time job. I would take a file in my hand, put on my gloves and had to clean parts with the file. I made 25 pieces this way and I worked hard. One piece weighed eight kilos, but that didn't matter. I was young and I needed money. Then, on my holiday, September 12, I was summoned to the police office. I was scared, not knowing what was going on. They had documents on the part-time job, on the depreciation of the file and so on, absolute nonsense. A colleague from the accounting office had arranged it because her brother worked for the police. I asked a comrade from the factory - he was a communist, through whom all secret materials passed – who had given them to him. But he made some excuses and fell silent." – “And what did they want from you?” – "They just wanted to scare me. They only asked me about the part-time job."

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    Praha, 15.05.2023

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In November 1989, militiamen in Tatra Smíchov sew batons to use against demonstrators

Marie Veberová, 2023
Marie Veberová, 2023
photo: Post Bellum
photo: Post Bellum
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Marie Veberová, née Zelinková, was born on July 26, 1946 in Prague as the only child of Marie and Augustin Zelinková. Her father worked as a stove fitter. Marie comes from Smíchov, which was a working-class neighborhood in her childhood. In 1964, she graduated from a secondary technical school, then joined the company Tatra Smíchov, where she worked almost her entire life. In 1968, she married a colleague from work, Zdenek Veber, whose family was persecuted by the communist regime. They raised a son. Marie never joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), even though she knew she could benefit from it. Her workplace relationships in the 1970s and 1980s were marked by totalitarianism, profiteering and envy. She was interrogated by the State Security (StB) because she was earning extra money from a part-time job. At the time of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, she saw batons being filled with sand in the upholstery workshop in Tatra Smíchov in order to be used against protesters. At retirement age, she studied at the University of the Third Age and worked until the age of 73 years. In 2023, she lived in Prague.

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