Jitka Vodňanská

* 1944

  • “An activist group had been created, people, who decided to take care of those injured in the Národní Třída. There was a surgeon, a general practitioner, me as a psychotherapist, Michal Vančura as a psychotherapist and one other physician. And for a year, there was this group at U Apolináře, where people would go every week. Those people had trauma. Either they were traumatised by the event itself... and I also did have a trauma, as I had been to Národní třída, of course, and as I was small, I thought that I would be trampled to death. It was in fact a traumatising event. So till today, I have to avoid huge crowds. And in the course of that year, people would come who were traumatised by the fact that they couldn´t bear the happiness. They couldn´t bear freedom, change of profession or loss of a family. As the families were breaking up. As one part would be pro-communist and the second part would be open-minded, for example.”

  • “There were many fields on which we could play. I wasn´t familiar with literature and visual arts, more like with music, and Václav had been quite educated in all fields of knowledge. As we could see in his plays, his main interest was the soul of man. So he would even accompany me to Apolinář and attend my seminars. As I had been focusing on the non-verbal techniques. In fact, I founded musical therapy in our country. Back then, I had this seminar at the Barrandov studio with some directors. Some kind of a workshop. So I would take Václav with me. And they didn´t know him, as he hadn´t been so well known back then. And he would join us, he did some roles, some theatre plays, he would do a choo-choo train... He was fascinated by the depths of the human soul and that has been my favourite hobby as well. So we shared a common passion. Later, as I started to meditate, I develop some interest in mysticism. I also did the holotropic breathwork and he was very interested in that. We were fascinated by all the life stories. He even wanted to participate on my psychotherapeutic sessions, but that wasn´t possible, of course.”

  • “First thing we did was that we would go visit Láďa Lis, a disident, in Peklo. And we had a good time as the whole family was very friendly. And I would even live with them for some time, we would take care of animals... And as we were having dinner, this task force would appear, eighteen people maybe. And there were children, so it was quite dramatic. They would surround the house. And of course we had plenty of documents related to our dissident activities. So they would arrest Láďa Lis and Václav. Me and Alena, Láďa´s wife, would run through the back door. I had keys from the car with me, so we would take all the materials from the car, stashed in some bags and briefcases, and we would stuff it into the draining pipes. Meanwhile, they would do a house search and arrest both of them. As we as women were not important. These two dissidents were important. And there were two little kids, as was acting as an aunt, so me and Alena we would go to take care of the children, but in the meantime we would hide the stuff. As always, they would arrest Václav for forty-eight hours. And Jirka Dienstbier was also there. So after two days they would come to the Lis family and they would bring Jirka Dienstbier with them, and we would celebrate that they didn´t lock them up after all. As you never knew whether they would be there for half a year, for four years, or just for two days. So that was the first day of our vacation.”

  • “It could be said those were kind of a childlike fears, as I could remember the Konviktská street quite well. It was in the morning so there were no friends of mine yet- And this perverted type would lead me through the second underground level. All the cells were open and he would lead me to some cell in the back and he would watch me through the peephole. I had to put my clothes off, then a female warden would show up and I had to do squats so they could find out whether I was hiding something. I am claustrophobic to some degree, so at a moment like this, all the childlike fears and phobias would resurface. As you really didn´t know what was going to happen to you. Paradoxically, the uncertainty was the hardest part. When I would sit in an interrogation room, I was glad that I managed to get out of that cell. But then, there was this gynecological exam and they would give me a chlorpromazine (Thorazine) shot, an anti-psychotic, so I would give a statement. I felt totally hammered after that. Then they would throw me in a cell with two more women, the first one was to become Ivan Havel´s partner, the other used to help Petr Uhl with his kids, and later it would show up that they had planted her as an informer.”

  • “They would lock me up in 1979, as there had been a trial with my friends, so at the city court at Karlovo náměstí I would get some notebook from my brother, from Jan Dienstbier, in which were notes that he would take in secret during the trial. And I was supposed to pass it to someone. So I would wander around the corridor and as I went outside, there were two men who would grab me at the door and throw me in a car. They would take me to Konviktská street, where I had been interrogated for maybe eleven hours. That was quite unpleasant. They forced me to undergo a gynecological exam, I had to do squats naked and so on. I encountered something for which I was by no means prepared. Your friends could tell you about such things, but still it was quite brutal. And as I would go out, there were Jan and Tomášek standing. And Tomášek would call me 'Mummy', and I had to get in a car. In fact, many friends of mine experienced these things. It wasn´t such a big deal when compared to others, but for me, it was a great deal. As they would tell me that I could go to jail for many years, and my friends really did. They were forcing me to say things I didn´t want to say, and most importantly, I had those documents on me that I was supposed to hand over to people from the Radio Free Europe, and I didn´t succeed – they would confiscate everything, some notebook with all the addresses and so on.”

  • “Even people in our training group, that I joined in 1972, were of the same age as I was, no one had been younger. Today, even much younger people would join. Well back then I was young but there were also people who had completed their education as psychiatrists or physicians, there were no students of pedagogy of psychology. And I had been so revealing experience that transformed me completely. As I came from a different field of study and they would take me in, it had been quite difficult and in the beginning it had been me who would bring up many personal problems. Of course everyone would do that but as I had been this naive fool I would probably bring much more than others.” - “But that´s what trainings are for, aren´t they?” - “Well yes, but there was this man – and I can say his name – Dr Eis, who almost wouldn´t say a word, and as it would show up later, he was an informer. And he had been part of this little group of ours, and it would be quite interesting later during an interrogation. As they would tell me things about me that I usually wouldn´t tell anyone. And much later, I found out that it was Zdeněk Eis who was sitting there with us, and that he most probably was an informer.”

There were informers even among those who were supposed to treat the souls of fellow human beings, and not to hurt them

A portrait; 1960
A portrait; 1960
photo: Pamětník

Jitka Vodňanská, née Schánilcová, was born on November 12th of 1944 in Praha to the family of Václav Shánilec, a lawyer, and his wife Olga, née Monastýrská. Her father came from South Bohemia, her mother from Ukraine. After the World War II, her family moved to Blatná, where Jitka would spend her childhood and adolescence. In 1961, she went to Praha to study anthropology at the Faculty of Science, Charles University, graduating in 1966. During the following two years of political changes, Jitka experienced personal crisis. She undertook two journeys to the West that influenced her profoundly, and in Germany, where she had been working at a hospital as an unskilled labourer, she discovered her calling: to help people. In 1969, Dr Jaroslav Skála chose her to join his team at U Apolináře Alcohol Rehab Clinic. In years to come, she studied psychology and underwent several trainings in psychotherapy. She had been working as an alcohol abuse therapist; and after Dr Skála entrusted her with running the Child and Youth Centre, she transformed it into the Centre for psychotherapy and family therapy where she has been working since. In 1977, she married Jan Vodňanský, a writer and a songwriter, and gave birth to their son, Tomáš. Both she and her husband had been active in the dissident movement, in their flat, clandestine lectures were being given, and Jan lost all his income after signing the Charter 77 declaration. In 1979, Jitka experienced the harsh treatment during the interrogation for the first time, she was blackmailed and and her flat was searched by the police. In the mid 80s, after her divorce, she started a relationship with Václav Havel - a persecuted dissident- which had lasted till the early 90s. In November 1989, she co-founded the Občanské fórum (Civic Forum) cell at her workplace; she also helped to create a group of professionals offering care to the people traumatised not only during the protests in Národní třída (National Avenue) but also by the rapid social change. In 1992, she would run for the seat in the Federal Assembly as a ODA party candidate, later distancing herself from the politics. In the years after the Revolution, she faced more challenges, related both to her profession and self-growth; she found her ‘spiritual home’ in Burma, where she would travel every year. She has been running her private praxis and also working at Centre for psychotherapy and family therapy.