"Of course we knew it was some kind of repression by the communists against our family, but we kept telling ourselves, God help us, it's not like the 1950s, we'll survive somehow. Mostly our friends helped us, our friends took care of us a lot, even my dad's workmates - they were communists too, and they all knew it was dirty. For example, when Daddy was locked up, his boss found out that he had once filed an improvement proposal, and Mum suddenly got a bigger sum of money. They were just kind of trying to help."
"The Šnajdrs, they were quite a well-known family in Mikulovice. First of all, they were a big family, they had or have five daughters and Mr. Šnajdr was also an excellent organist. My mother played the organ, and sometimes they would see each other at funerals or church festivals, and they would actually pass notes to each other through the organ. That's how they met. We used to visit them when we were little, so we knew each other for a long time. Then, just around the eighties, we used to meet them, but they were also very fond of that pilgrimage place Maria Hilf near Zlaté Hory, so we used to meet them through that and on various pilgrimages. When there was a pilgrimage in Mikulovice, the whole family went there, and when it was in Jeseník, they came again, we talked, we visited each other, and a friendship was formed. And by the time the children were growing up, boys swarmed around the girls, many people came to them, all kinds of suitors and priests... Their family was also so open to all kinds of visitors from church circles who were also interested in politics. And it was in the eighties that I used to go there alone, not only with my parents. I was drawn there by the young people, we played volleyball, they had an improvised playground in the garden. There was always a lot of singing, all the boys who went there played guitars very well, so that was also attractive. We also sang a lot of Taizé chants there, and it was coming to Czechoslovakia from France. At that time, they were going there regularly every Sunday afternoon, and of course that started to be a thorn in the side of some observant neighbours."
"Then Tomáš [Kopřiva] came to [my husband] and said, 'Well, if you want to do something, don't make yourself visible at any demonstrations, and that he would have a job for him. Just if he would be willing to copy samizdat. Tomáš Kopřiva initiated him into it, and a network was created - we didn't really know each other. Somebody copied it, somebody had to get the membranes - it basically always had to be saved somewhere at work, that - it couldn't be bought. Someone wrote it, someone copied it, he [Tomáš Kopřiva] then supplied my husband with the membranes and said, for example, 'I need to make ten copies of this.' He supplied him with a little frame with a roller. - Did you have a frame? - Yes, yes, I still have it in the attic somewhere. - Really? - It happened when he just arrived in the evening and it had to be done in the morning, so my husband printed all night. We had little kids, so it was always breastfeeding and everything... He came in and he said, 'I need information about the church by morning, ten times. If you want, do it for yourself and give it to whoever you see fit. And you've got to be careful.' That's how we started delivering it to my parents in Yesenik, and my parents started spreading it to their trusted friends and acquaintances."
Zdislava Nedvědová, née Dvořáková, was born in Jeseník on 4 August 1961 to parents Helena and Václav Dvořák, the eldest of three children. They lived in Jeseník. Her parents were devout Catholics and the family was persecuted. In 1968-1970, she attended the restored Scout. Because of her religious convictions she was not accepted to the secondary medical school, she was apprenticed as a ladies‘ dressmaker under the TDK Šumperk company. She then took exams at the Secondary Industrial School of Clothing in Prostějov. In 1978-1982 she lived in Olomouc, from where she commuted to school in Prostějov, and became a member of the Young Catholics‘ community in Olomouc. In 1982 she graduated from secondary school. She studied for a year at the Mining University in Ostrava, then left her studies and joined the District Clothing Cooperative in Šumperk in technical production preparation. She became a member of the church community in Šumperk, met her future husband Ladislav Nedvěd, who introduced her to Julius Varga, and they became friends. After their marriage in 1985, she and her husband became involved in the Šumperk dissent, began to reproduce samizdat literature by means of the cyclostyle, and continued to distribute it in Jeseník and among their closest friends. They organized and hosted, for example, a meeting of Václav Malý with parishioners in Rapotín in 1989. Five children were born to them. After the revolution, she worked in the Asylum House for Mothers with Children in the Pontis Šumperk organization or in the FOD in Olomouc. In 2024, at the time of filming, she was still living in the rectory in Rapotín.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
