Monika Němcová

* 1966

  • "And there it was a communist next to a communist. They had those red cloths everywhere and the inscriptions: Together we will overcome I don't know what… And now they were all quite excited. And they did that they took me to that tribune, pushing me to the counter, and saying, 'Now tell us here.' First, they introduced me that they had brought student representatives and that we would have a discussion. I had no idea what they wanted to talk about. So, I stood there at the counter. Someone was whistling, someone was throwing something at me, someone didn't know what to do, so they started clapping. Excellent, excellent. And then I didn't even know what they wanted from me. So, I took the microphone, greeting them, saying hello, that I'm a representative of the strike committee, and that it's high time they realized… And I still thought at that time that the Communist Party would ban it, I really believed and hoped that it will be prohibited. I said that we already have people everywhere, that there is no way to reverse it. And that they need to realize it. And that I am aware that I am there alone, but that it is still necessary to say that the period of communists, Marxism - Leninism, is over. And some started whistling again, and some were already thinking that there was actually no going back, so they started clapping. They thanked me and asked me if I wanted a sandwich."

  • "I was rather afraid that they might really do something to us. Because it was not only about a few people who, for example, were beaten or… It is said that actually communism, I call it communism even though it was not de facto communism. It was said that it was actually mild here, that people were not killed and shot here. They didn't shoot, but they weren't completely mild, the STB. For example, they threatened me, I said it even to the One Hundred Student Revolutions, I was young, when I was picked up at the station. Six guys sat around me and they said, if I don't say the names with whom the concerts are organized, who brings what we rewrite, they will all rape me. That I can't even imagine what they'll do to me. And I was a sixteen-year-old girl." "Were you prepared by anyone for what such an interrogation might look like?" "No. No, because, I don't think anyone can prepare you for that. You just don't understand what's going on at all."

  • "I was then, I was sixteen. I wanted to travel, we couldn't travel. It's funny today, but there was a queue for meat in the store. You got good meat - sirloin, only when someone hid it under the counter. Under the counter means that you don't buy it normally, but you have to bribe someone to give you a sirloin steak. There was a queue for oranges. We were standing in a queue in front of the bookstore every Thursday morning to buy a book. We couldn't travel anywhere at all. And most importantly, we couldn't read what we wanted to read. Here was clearly given literature that you could buy, borrow and you couldn't read more. In the newspapers there were only things that were supporting the communist party. You had no freedom at all to think. You could have thought what you wanted, but you had no source at all to form an official worldview other than the fact that you were locked in that box here and you could do nothing at all. Apart from, for example, an exit permit to East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, not everyone received it, we did not have passports. "

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    České Budějovice, 24.02.2020

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    délka: 02:01:28
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This ridiculous system could not last long

Monika Němcová 17 years old
Monika Němcová 17 years old
zdroj: archive of the witness

Monika Němcová was born on December 12, 1966 in Jindřichův Hradec. She grew up in České Budějovice, where she graduated from the primary school in Nová Street and continued at the Karel Šatal secondary grammar school. From the age of sixteen, she participated in concerts of banned bands and copied samizdat. As a teenager, she was questioned by the State Security. After high school graduation, she unsuccessfully applied to university three times, worked as a worker, an entrant in the daily Jihočeská pravda or an assistant at the České Budějovice Observatory. In 1989 she was accepted into the field of English at the Faculty of Education in České Budějovice. In November 1989, she joined the Student Revolution, becoming a member of the strike committee. She represented students at the South Bohemian Regional Congress of the Communist Party, where she informed the present officials that the period of communism was over. In the early 1990s, she traveled to Canada to improve her English. After her return, she founded a translation and interpreting agency. Later she started a business in real estate. She did not complete her studies at the pedagogical faculty. In 2000, she became involved with the unsuccessful political party Cesta změny. After the birth of sons Matyáš (2003) and Sebastián (2008), she graduated from law. In 2020, Monika lived in Dobrá Voda near České Budějovice.