Why I wanted to be a Communist

A miner's son, František K. only went to elementary school and worked as a railroad attendant, but in the „languages spoken“ column he wrote „German“ because he was from Postoloprt and during the war he served in the Reich's railways in Frankfurt. A month after the end of the war, at 45, he signed an application to the Czechoslovak Communist Party and was accepted without comment: Before 1939, he was followed for „publicly spreading Communist thoughts“ and was a party member from way back when, and joined the party immediately in 1921. He left the party seven years later, but they forgave him.

Mrs Jana, from Jeviněvsi near Mělnik, was born three years after the railway attendant from Postoloprty joined the Communists for the second time. And 37 years later, she followed him. This farmer's daughter, an ideological stalwart, worked as a headmistress; in her elementary school's afterschool care centre, she was „vouched for“ by her colleague („She leads the children in the spirit of Communist ideology“). She herself praised the Soviet occupation in a mandatory ceremony, and in June 1982, she received party membership number 1,149,302.

Mad Cinderellas

These two people, far apart from each other in both age and in walks of life, came together in the same place: Their stories make up a small part of an epic saga of 7 million people who went through membership in the…