Život na rozhraní věků – Vaňková Ludmila (2017)

Ludmila Vaňková's own biography begins like a novel about a childhood paradise. Her father was the director of several financial institutions and later a member of the inner leadership of the Czech National Bank. In his rich library, she quickly became acquainted with literature and history, and in her childhood dreams, there was always a wish to capture the entire Czech history in literary form. The family lived in harmony; her father, though busy with work, always made time for his daughters Blanka and Ludmila. Her mother took care of her father and the family, was involved in the women's movement, knew Milada Horáková well, and her personal passion was music, playing the piano. Both daughters inherited her musical talent; Blanka pursued singing professionally, while Ludmila, with her mathematical talent from her father, was drawn to theater and literature. But then came the fall into the abyss, the inferno; her father was executed during the Heydrich era, leaving the family without a breadwinner, and her mother with the daughters had to move from Prague to Řevnice. They were greatly helped at that time by Oldřich Pecl, who was in the resistance like her father, and a cruel fate befell him only in the 1950s when he was executed in the trial against Milada Horáková. After the war, Ludmila Vaňková studied at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, where she again met her missing friend Hana Prošková,…