Jarmila Bočánková

Jarmila Bočánková, born Indráková, was born August 14, 1931, to a Czech-German family. In autumn 1938 after the occupation of the Sudetenland, they had to flee Šternberk near Olomouc where they lived, because the father was a Czech patriot and a local Sokol leader, and was thus in danger of being persecuted by the Germans. During the war the family lived in the Czech town of Tovačov. Here, the mother, who was a German, saved the lives of 120 people thanks to her contacts with her former classmate, who was then the head of the Gestapo in Přerov. She warned those who had been reported to the Gestapo for listening to London or Moscow radio broadcast; therefore they could dispose of their radios beforehand and thus evade the danger. In spite of that, the National Guard imprisoned her after the liberation, and she was in risk of being killed. She was eventually helped by a Russian officer. The Indrák family then moved to Hlubočky u Olomouce, where they were all arrested by the State Police on the New Year's Eve of 1948. The authorities also took away a little girl, whom the family had adopted, and they never saw her again. After half a year of detention in basement prison cells, a trial was held in Olomouc in July 1949. Seventeen-year-old Jarmila Indráková was sentenced for high treason and espionage. She spent four years in imprisonment and was held in prisons in Prague-Pankrác, Hradec Králové, Kostelec nad Orlicí and in the Institution for young delinquents in Lnáře. Her mother was imprisoned for six years in Znojmo and Pardubice. Her father was held for nine and a half years in labour camps in Příbram and in the Jáchymov region. As a result of his imprisonment, he developed lung cancer which took his life. After her release, Jarmila Indráková married Cyril Šollar, whom she met in prison while he was helping the imprisoned girls. However, after four years of marriage she became a widow and she remained alone with two little children. Being a political prisoner, her situation was even more difficult, the regime kept persecuting her. Later she worked in Pilsen as a janitor in a hospital. She completed her education and then worked as a nurse in the psychiatric hospital in Dobřany. She was working there for over twenty years till her retirement. She remarried. Mrs. Bočánková is a member of the Confederation of Political Prisoners in Pilsen.

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