Vlasta Peštová

“The Germans went from Benešov. I don't know if you know it there, but when we go from the Thomayer Hospital up to the subway today, we called it Endršták. That was the hill up. There wasn't a subway yet and the road wasn't there either. And we already knew that the Germans are going to Prague. That was cruel, because they pulled all people out of their houses and they had to go in front of them. Our dad and all the guys were building barricades. We had just the last barricade behind our block.” - “Which street did you live in? ”- In Michelská 711. My dad went with the guys and we all were in a cellar. Entire cellars had been broken through, beds were put there and we were there at the time of revolution. Suddenly a bang, and a house of our neighbours was shot off. ”

"What was the atmosphere in 1948 like?" - "The atmosphere touched us a lot, but not the way it touched adults. The adults already knew what it was. We knew less. We were 13, 14 years old.” - “When Gottwald was sitting on the grandstand.” - “We had a parade through Prague, and when we walked past the grandstand, we stopped playing, and we just marched. Huge wooden dressing rooms were built in Strahov. There was nothing there before, so the dressing rooms were made there. And then - I said - you will go through the gate once and then you are already returning. It is a truly incredible experience - since those 14 years, and unfortunately also in those Spartakiads. We did not perceive that there was some communist terror after 1948. We were used to going to practice, and then we stopped going to practice after 1948 when they canceled it. My mother walked, so did we, and we stopped.”

“We were in Michle, in Sokol, the leadership there was excellent. Lots of children were going there from the top and it was quite far from the Sokol house in Michle. We went out with the whole bunch, boys, girls, everyone went to Sokol. Then we were at the gathering. First at high school, at that time I was already attending a secondary grammar school. There was a high school gathering in Ohradní. And then a gathering in 1948. We had the regional gatherings, and then we rehearsed for Strahov. And be aware – we had to do test for that! It was so popular that there were exclusion tests. I got there because I cried. They would have taken me there since I was fifteen, and my sister trained as a junior, and I wanted to be a junior too, so I prayed and we trained with juniors. We practiced dances, in blue chitons we practiced with rings. We loved it.”

“What are you grateful for to Sokol?” - “First of all, the physical activity. Even though I am a half-handicapped today, I have strong hands - as I helped children and so on. I get off the ground badly, but with a great effort I get up over those hands. And Sokol also gave me self-discipline and relationship with children. I love children. That's why we loved the camps. ”-“ And when did you go to those camps? ”- From 1968 to 1974.” - “And were those camps led by Pioneer, or what were they called? - "Like Sokol." - "But it must have not been called like that, right?" - "No. But we ran it like Sokol camps. Some had run it like that already before the war. They had experienced that pre-war period, then it was over, and then in 1948 they tore it off, and then they cried.”

“Our mother was a great member of Sokol and dad a fireman and they both met in Pyšely. There my mother went to Sokol. So we were brought up in the Sokol spirit. So after the war we went to Sokol. When it was terminated, we had the advantage that at our Michle High School there was a tremendously good physical education and we could continue. Ball games, athletics, gymnastics, everything. The teachers were enlightened and it was fine. " A lot of graduates got to the top in sport." - "You said you started going back to Sokol around 1963."-"It wasn't Sokol yet. It was ZRTV - basic physical education, and it belonged to ČSTV. But it was in the Vineyard gym. The gym was run by CKD, so it was CKD Stalingrad, and then some of the movements fell under Bohemians. So we were under Bohemians as ZRTV until 1989.”