The life of a Czech actress Jana Březinová († 60) was marked by a tragedy that later limited her in her personal and professional life. writes the website. When she was only one year old, her mother Margareta died during World War II. As a woman of Jewish origin, she was first imprisoned in Pankrác, later deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp and finally probably until Auschwitz.
Father Jaroslav survived the war, but the family had no news about Margareta for many decades. It was only after 40 years that an unknown woman came to them and gave them the last things that remained of her – fabric embroidery and a stuffed giraffe. The actress later admitted that the psychological consequences of her wartime childhood and traumatic memories accompanied her throughout her life.
After elementary school, her stepmother directed her to a trade, so Jana trained as an arranger. However, the desire for acting was stronger, so she applied to the Prague DAMU. After completing her studies, she worked at the State Theater Studio in Příbram and later got an engagement in the National Theater, where she played until 1998. She left there voluntarily for health reasons – doctors diagnosed her with cancer, to which she succumbed in 2000.
In her private life, she experienced two great loves. First of all married the actor and dubber Zdeňko Dušek, with whom she had a daughter Vendula. Their marriage was harmonious for years, but it changed when Březinová fell in love with a colleague from the National Theater Josef Vinklář († 76). Both were engaged at the time, but decided on a new life together.
Vinklář divorced because of her, but she finally decided to stay with her family. She ended the romance and it hurt the actor deeply. Vinklář later admitted that he considered her decision a just punishment for his own mistakes.
Among her colleagues, Jana Březinová was perceived as an honest and principled person. She was able to stand up for her beliefs even in times of non-freedom. At the end of the 1980s, she signed the manifesto Several Sentences and, together with Josef Kemr, supported the petition for the release of Václav Havel from prison.
Slovak viewers remember her mainly from Jakubisk’s trilogy Nevera in Slovak as the wife of the forester Žofia, but she also starred in films such as Freckled Max and the Scarecrows, Thousand-year-old bee, Vrchní, prchni! or Build a house, plant a tree.
