Instead of studying at a grammar school, she went to work in an engine room at Štvanice

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Anna Pánková always had exceptionally good school results; she even represented her school in a number of poetry-reading and other competitions. In spite of her talents, she had no perspective of studying at a grammar school or any other type of secondary school because of her family and class background. Her father was arrested in 1949 and sent to work in a forced-labor camp. She thus was of a bad cadre origin and her study application was rejected by the so-called “street committee”: “About three weeks before the end of the school year, a notice came by mail saying that because I came from a reactionary family and because my father had been imprisoned, I would not be accepted to study at the grammar school.” Instead of the studies she had been dreaming about, fourteen-year-old Anna had to take up a job in a factory, ideally at the assembly line. Her mother knew the caretaker of the winter stadium in Štvanice, who arranged a job for the girl. It was a strenuous and physically demanding job with the machines that produced and kept the ice rink in shape, as Pánková recalls: “The machines were placed directly underneath the ice rink in dark corridors. It was necessary to lubricate them or tighten the screws and nuts. Not only was she the only child working there, but also the only woman. The engine room employed also mentally disabled people and people with the Down syndrome. Being only fourteen years old, I was terribly scared of them.” Anna worked for two years at the winter stadium before she was allowed to study alongside work.

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MUDr. Anna Pánková

Anna Pánková, née Jírová, was born in January 1945 in Prague in a mixed Czech-Jewish family. Her father came from a non-religious Jewish family living in Slovakia, her mother was Czech. Thanks to the protection of his non-Jewish wife, Anna’s father was able to evade the transport to the concentration camp. Nevertheless, the spouses were not allowed to live in the same household. After the war, her father worked as a lawyer at the Ministry of Industry and her mother worked at first as an artist and afterwards took care of the household. In 1949, the father of Anna Pánková was arrested along with other like-minded friends of him and he was sent to a forced-labor camp. He worked for two years in the mines around Příbram and Jáchymov. The incarceration of Anna’s father completely changed the social status of the family. Her mother was hardly employable and her father worked in manual professions and made some extra money by translations after his release. Anna, despite being an exemplary student, was prevented from studying at a grammar school by the so-called “committee of the street.” Instead of studying, at the age of 14, she had to carry out heavy manual labor in an engine room of the Štvanice winter stadium. After two years, she got permission to study extramurally at an evening school for the working-class cadres. Later, she was even admitted to studies of medicine as a transition from her working-class occupation. In August 1968, when she studied in London, she was strongly urged by her parents to emigrate from Czechoslovakia. Anna Pánková has devoted her entire professional life to the study and practicing of medicine. She lives alternately in Františkovy lázně and in Prague.

The Štvanice winter stadium

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The first winter stadium in Czechoslovakia with synthetic ice was opened in 1932. It used to be situated at the Štvanický ostrov Island, almost in the middle of Prague. It was declared a cultural monument in 2000. However, in May 2011, it was demolished.

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Instead of studying at a grammar school, she went to…

MUDr. Anna Pánková