In memoriam Hana Jakubcová and Josef Průcha
As soon as at the memorial meeting
on the eve of Pavel Polka's unlived birthday, rumours
of the death of Hana Jakubcová, a founding member of the Society, surfaced. Unfortunately, the news was confirmed – Hana Jakubcová passed away on March 26th 2025. Her nephew, Mr. Petr Jakubec, invited us to the funeral mass on the day
of her birthday – June 20th, 2025.
Also at the aforementioned meeting unconfirmed speculations emerged that even with Mr. Josef Průcha,
another founding member of the Society, not everything would probably be okay, that
it was impossible to establish contact with him.
At the meeting of the ČHäS committee on May 6th,
2025, the present Mrs. Jana Hejdová brought the news that he had
died in July 2024 of a heart attack at the age of 83.
Below you will find a few personal memories of both deceased.
Honour to their memory!
Remembering Hana Jakubcová
When remembering Hanka Jakubcová, I feel like we have known each other forever. She was a founding member of the Society. I met the others in the early 1990s. I probably met Hana at some joint event. Maybe during a trip abroad, a seminar, or a concert? I don't keep detailed diaries.
However, definitely during summer stays at Ohařice and subsequently at Tužín. Hana loved blooming meadows. She only rarely remembered her ‘flight attendant’ days. She said she enjoyed flying to Jakarta and getting to know distant cultures. Then she studied law. I visited her in her court office at Ovocný trh. Suddenly, the door to her office opened and the orderly lifted out a huge bundle of court files from the cupboard. More were lying all around the room. Hana, sitting in the middle of the flood, looked very unhappy. As always, a responsible woman would like to help everyone, but it was not humanly possible to investigate everything… She always seemed balanced, willing to help at any time, or at least smoothen the edges of the often excited dialogues of some members of the Society. She regularly attended churches, liked her own peace and I think that in her apartment with loggias full of flowers and herbs she led a quiet, harmonious life. She kept her secrets to herself.
We visited quality exhibitions, debated on the phone. She always gave me good advice. The last time we met was during my lectures for seniors, followed by an obligatory stop for coffee and sandwiches. We also traveled together to the cemetery at Mšeno. She had a hard time coming to terms with the untimely death of Pavel Polka. And now I have to come to terms with her departure. She will certainly have a significant place in my memory!
Petr Tylínek, June 15th, 2025
Remembering Hana Jakubcová and Josef Průcha
Hello everyone!
When I think of Hanička and have to recall any incident, it's not easy, because even though she was often present at events, her behaviour was always distinguished and therefore she was never associated with any disgrace; I can't even remember any conflict or argument, and I can't really remember any ‘super funny’ story either. Simply an ideal companion. But I'll tell you something about her that few people may know.
In her youth, she was a flight attendant and then, somehow mysteriously for me, she left the profession for good and quickly; actually she hardly wanted to talk about it… something must have happened there. Her next career – as far as I know, she was a judge and when I remember her approach, she wanted to solve everything in a conciliatory way with her heart in her hand – so I just hope that the great sinners did not leave the courtroom with light sentences or acquitted.
I only know all this from hearsay and so I hope that I am not spreading hoaxes and perhaps her nephew would tell us more about it.
As for Pepíček, there would be a lot more there because his behavior was ‘distinctive’.
It is interesting that he and Pavel [Polka] met at Halle, where they both went independently to the Handel Festival in the 1980s. They then became an inseparable pair, even though they could argue to the point of blood. Pavel often said that he would never take him anywhere again and then Pepíček was always one of the first he called and Pavel invited him wherever he could. At our concerts, his role was often to sell tickets and promotional materials and ‘hold hands on the cash register’.
He often told anecdotes, of which he had a lot in stock and often almost scared or offended some of the more fragile people by nature, because the anecdotes were often somewhat pub-like, I would say.
A strong experience with him was during a trip to England where he got the nickname ‘Rafan’ (a ‘bitedog’) or ‘Náhončí’ (a henchman), because Pavel entrusted him with the task of keeping the group together as much as possible and when we had to be somewhere at a given time, he almost pushed the participants with a stick (I mean it in a good way). His other nickname was ‘the young gentleman seeking a wife’. When he liked a young artist at events, he would not leave her alone and, as if for fun, he would propose to her. In such situations, he was literally a sweetheart, as if he had been someone else.
Wherever we went, his primary interest was to find and visit a cake shop, that's where he seemed to be most happy.
I also experienced incredible feasts in restaurants, when he was able to order (and consume) five or more meals, and once, I think, we were in the lounge of a restaurant in Židněves, there were about four of us and he kept ordering so much that the chef supposedly asked if there were any expedition or excursion groups there.
For your interest, he brought Jana Hejdová, his former classmate, to join us.
There would really be a lot, I'll give space to others who may remember.
Michal Typl, June 13th, 2025
How I remember Hana Jakubcová
Good evening everyone,
Unfortunately, another sad news… I won't be in Prague on Friday, June 20th, but of course I will and do remember Hanka. I remember, for example, a joint visit to the Halle Festival with Hanka and Pavel [Polka], I think sometime in 2007. It was a strange, almost disparate ‘line-up’: the eternally hurried and slightly nervous Pavel and next to him the very casual and generous Hanka. I remember how we almost missed the beginning of one performance precisely because of her relaxed casualness: Pavel was almost running far ahead of us and was slightly angry with her (in this case, quite rightly so), I tried to physically ‘secure’ the slightly stumbling Hanka and at the same time unobtrusively push her, and besides that, I acted as a communication ‘connector’ between the two of them. In the end, everything turned out well. :)
If there is Heaven, I hope that both of them are already enjoying Handel's music there without rushing. Honour to their memory!
Mgr. Ivo Šindelář, secretary of ČHäS, June 11, 2025