Women's Portraits

Alena Groulíková

A seventy-four-year old elegant and bright woman; persecuted in her life because of her political opinions and belief in God. Mother of seven children, member of “Order of Chivalry 56”, socially active. I experienced political persecution of my father, my husband and my whole family. I did not let anybody deprive me of my belief in God.

My childhood

My father was a lawyer; my mother started working in an office only when my father had to leave the lawyer practice and go to work to a factory for political reasons. As a lawyer he had bravely defended private farmers in conflicts with the state when agricultural cooperatives were founded after the nationalization of their property. From historical perspective, the period of collectivization was one of the cruellest stages of the history of the Czech country. And the fact that we were a family of believers sufficed for us to become enemies of the regime who were to be “treated” in such way. Therefore we often moved house and sought a place for living. We also got to České Budějovice.

I studied at the grammar school, I learned well and I wanted to become a physician. A child from a politically unreliable family could not think of studying at the university, and so the study of medicine stayed my unfulfilled dream. I sought a job “for living”; I found the job of a secretary; the knowledge of foreign languages and my faith moved me further in life again. I did not abandon myself to sadness or to self-pity.

My second family

I found a new support in a man whom I married soon. He was a civil engineer, a believer and a honest man. He refused to join the Communist Party and after 1968 he openly expressed his disapproval of the Warsaw Pact armies entering our republic and occupying it. He was fired from work and transferred from Pozemní stavby in České Budějovice to Písek. I stayed in České Budějovice alone with our children; I had a demanding work and had to care for the household daily. Thanks to my inherited genes, faith, health and love and also thanks to reason, I persisted. I will tell you an event from the time when I was about 23 or 25 years old. A professor brought an entrance test from England, according to which students were chosen for study at the Oxford University. I was the only one to pass the entrance test. When the professor asked me: “Madam, what do you do?” I answered: “I wipe my children’s bottoms and throw dumplings into water”. I was mother of three children then already.

And years kept running…  

When we had three small children we came to our house that is now being rebuilt by my son who is adding on the loft. We adapted it for living by ourselves. My husband never had a job for sure; therefore we always had to expect everything.

I remember an event after 1968 when my husband went to Rome with a Catholic society. The visit to Rome included an audience with Paul VI the Pope. The photograph on which he was near the Pope, together with other Czechs, Slovaks and Poles, become fatal to him. It appeared on the jacket of Ján Guitton’s book “Dialogues with Paul VI” to serve to an unknown “reporter” and helper of the regime to bad things. The consequence was as expected; my husband had to leave his job again.

The idea of a united Europe based on Christianity brought us to the “Paneuropean Union of Bohemia and Moravia” in 1984. In 2009 I became member of the “Order of Chivalry 56”.

I had and lost a lot but I also got a lot in my life

I never let anybody deprive me of my belief in God, my vitality and my humour. I brought seven healthy children into the world; me and my husband brought them up well and created a safe home for them. When my husband died, our youngest son was only thirteen. I worked until I was seventy in order to provide solid entry to life even for the youngest ones. Our family relationships stayed firm and they have constituted a harbour of rest, peace and contentment till today.

I have everything I need for life. My greatest wish from my youth, to travel the world, was fulfilled abundantly thanks to my children. I learned to know the world and the people in it. I tried to live as one should live. In humility and life. And if I keep healthy, I will be happy as well.

And my ladies, I send you this message: put on a wide-brimmed hat and enjoy everything you meet in the world, with awareness of well spent life.

Marie Mácová