Mgr. Markéta Vítková, roz. Černá

* 1942

  • "Dad was the editor-in-chief of SNDK at the time. On August 25, 1969, he gave a letter to the Committee of the Communist Party of the Communist Party of the SNDK; it was just a brief statement: 'In 1945 Tito was a hero, after 1948 he was a bloody dog, after 1956 an expensive comrade, today he is probably a clear revisionist again. We have sent resolutions on all this. We believed and sent resolutions to Comrade Gottvald and Comrade Slánský. Then we sent resolutions condemning the betrayal. Then again a resolution condemning the gross distortions and deaths of the innocent. Last year, we gave our hearts and resolutions to the revival of the party and its leadership, led by Sr. Dubček. This year, we are being asked to condemn their actions as revisionism and perhaps even a counter-revolution. I no longer have the strength, I can't and I don't want to always give up my own mind again and again, always disciplined to confess the opposite of what was professed only a year ago. To be a weather vane within political upheaval. I hand over the party's identity card and ask you to be removed from the ranks of party members. Perhaps I can safely prove my relationship with socialism and communism outside the party. ‘Well, it remained established for some time in the SNDK so that we would not harm the publishing house. Then they invited Dad for an interview and expelled him. He worked as a warehouse worker here in Slivenec. He looked very pleased, wrote a book in a drawer and said he was glad he didn't have to sign anything anymore."

  • "It turned out that they told me that I was forbidden to enter the building to resign. I said I had no reason to resign, so I would let them to get me resigned. They didn't want to do that either. It ended up so that I had to sit near my phone at home and that I was given some homework. No one ever gave me a task over the phone. They sent me a pay check. It took three-quarters of a year, and they just called me to the personal department and pushed me to resign by agreement. Everyone around me, including my husband, persuaded me not to sign it, not to put in such pressure and that they should deal with it however they wanted. In the meantime, I went to my acquaintances and tried to see if they would hire me. At some places I had no luck at all - the Ethnographic Museum and all possible museums, where I said somewhere in the archive, wherever you hide me. To my acquaintances - in Barrandov's personal department, there was the head of the personal department, my classmate from the base: I said, "Eva, I'm going to do anything from the archive, even a cleaning lady, I just need a job."

  • "So already in 1959 I applied to the Faculty of Arts. And I was lucky that my dad was an editor at the time, but my mother was a worker. Thus, I was the origin of workers' intelligence. So I was accepted. My classmate from Barrandov, who had the same grades, we still meet. He was born on the exact same day as I was, that was on May 12, 1942. He was unlucky - he had none of the worker's parents. That's what they said, he needed a little knowledge of life. Advised by adults, he went to work at SONP in Kladno for a year. He worked there in the smelters. He applied as a worker in a year and was already accepted without any problems."

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    Praha, Slivenec, 21.11.2018

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Markéta Vítková born Černá
Markéta Vítková born Černá
photo: archiv pamětnice

Markéta Vítková, née Černá, was born on May 12, 1942 in Prague. Her life has been connected with the Prague-Slivenec district since her youth. After graduating from primary and secondary school, she studied at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, where she signed an application to the Communist Party. After graduating in 1964, she joined SOU in Kolín as a teacher and from 1966 she worked as an editor at Czechoslovak Radio. In April 1969, she returned her party ID, had to leave radio, and had trouble finding employment. Her father was released from the Albatros publishing house after returning his party ID and worked as a security guard at the landfill. From 1977 she worked at the Secondary School in Radotín, Prague, first as a secretary and later as a teacher until her retirement in 2012. In 1990 she became the first democratically elected mayor of Slivenec and until 1998 she served as deputy mayor. She is married, has two children and currently lives with her husband Karel Vítek in Slivenec.