"I remember in August 1988, when my son, who was fourteen at the time, I could see in him that he was hiding something, that he had something on his mind. So I struck him, and it came out that he had arranged with Andrej from the neighbours to go to a demonstration on Wenceslas Square on the twenty-first. And I said, 'No way. I'm not letting you go alone. So we were together for the first time in '88. And I like to remember that because then some other guys, there were about four of them, like fourteen of them. They closed off the square. It was still peaceful. I think there were no water cannons yet. I had this tactic, and it paid off at the demonstrations, that I went looking like a lady: a skirt, a purse... So I told the cops, 'I took the boys to town for a walk.' So they said, 'Next time, change your minds and get out of here.' That's how it started, and then Radim and I went regularly."
"Then we went on a trip with the faculty, with the art department, to St. Petersburg, that is, to Leningrad and Moscow. That was in the '73. I told myself I was going to go. My future husband could go too. He was studying aesthetics and art history, so we went there. But I didn't have a passport. They took my passport, of course, so I went to apply for a passport, but cunningly to Dejvice, not to Bartolomějská. And there, before they realized it, they gave it to me. And now we were waiting in Ruzyně at the entrance to check-in. We'd already handed in our passports, and now the cops called. I was still named Smrkovská in '73. We were all like, 'Oh boy, you're not going.' But I forgot to sign my passport, so it was missing my signature. So I went, it was a humorous little scene. And we arrived back and they took it away from me."
"Nobody knows how it would have turned out if they hadn't signed. That's one thing. The other thing: maybe my dad specifically. I can guarantee he didn't care about himself as a person. He felt insanely responsible that they caused this and that they couldn't give up. That kept him going all fall afterwards when he could have slammed the door, and now they would say he was the only one... He really didn't care about the functions. It's hard to judge."
"Of course, I wanted to go out on the streets. My mother categorically forbade me, which I understood because she was alone. So then we learned that they [Father Josef Smrkovský and the other politicians] had been taken away. We knew what everyone knew. And imagine: at that time, neighbours we didn't know came to us. They lived a block away on Ořechovka. We really didn't know them, and we didn't even see them after that. Strangers to us. Then I read that the family had something to do with Masaryk in the past. They came and said, 'Come to us, you're not safe here.' I guess it was on the twenty-second because, in the meantime, the gentlemen came to us and said they were from Šalgovič. Mum said: 'Put the chain on, don't open the door to anyone.' So I just cracked it open. Three men, saying that they were going to take us away so that nothing would happen to us and that Šalgovič sent them. I said we're not going anywhere, and bye. And then the Pekárek family came with this offer, so we were with the Pekárek family for two or three days."
Zdeňka Prahlová was born on 30 April 1949 in Prague. Her father was the politician and Communist Party functionary Josef Smrkovský, and her mother Katrin (formerly Božena) Smrkovská. Katrin Smrkovská was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941 and later deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her father was hiding underground. From 1945, Josef was actively involved in the ranks of the Communist Party. From 1945 to 1951, he was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Zdeňka came into the world as a second-born two years after her sister, Kateřina. In March 1951, her father was arrested, and in 1954, in a mock trial, he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He was released early at the end of 1955. After her husband‘s arrest, Katrin and her daughters were forcibly moved to Doksy in the Českolipsko region. In 1963, Smrkovský was rehabilitated and returned to Prague with his entire family. In 1968, Zdeňka graduated from the Secondary Vocational School of Art on Hollar Square in Prague. She experienced 21 August 1968, and the following days connected with her father‘s deportation to Moscow in Prague. In 1973, she graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague with a degree in Czech language and art education. After various vicissitudes connected with the difficulty of finding a job, she joined the Municipal Library in Prague (MKP) in 1978. From the 1980s, she worked in the Acquisitions Department and eventually became the head of this department. At the end of the 1980s, she actively participated in anti-regime demonstrations. She signed a petition for the release of Václav Havel from prison. In the 1970s, she married the art historian Roman Prahl. The Prahls had a son, Radim, in 1974 and a daughter, Barbora, in 1976.
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!
