She ran us all out, then stood there for about 20 minutes crying
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Zdena Bartoníková was born in Rapotín on 13 November 1950 to parents Vladimír Končický and Františka Končická. Both parents were Volhynian Czechs and came from Volhynia, a region in today’s Ukraine territory. Serving with the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps, her father came all the way from the Dukla Pass to Moravia. Having been demobilised, he settled on a farm in the Sudeten village of Rapotín in 1945. He fell in love with German Anna Hilbert. They had daughter Božena, and when they were expecting another daughter, Anna Hilbert received a letter to the effect that her husband, formerly registered as a killed Wehrmacht soldier, was waiting for her in Germany. Still pregnant, she went to her husband and left daughter Božena with Vladimír Končický. A year later, Vladimír Končický met Františka Čechová, a mother of two children and a widow of a Czechoslovak Army Corps soldier who had been killed in action. From their union came Zdena and Vlastimil. Zdena spent her childhood with her four siblings in Rapotín where her father was forced to surrender his farm and join a cooperative (JZD) during the collectivisation era. She met her German-born half-sister Helena for the first time in 1975 and has kept in touch with her ever since. After not completing her studies, Zdena Bartoníková worked at glassworks in Rapotín for thirty years. She married Květoslav Bartoník in 1970 and their only son Milan was born a year later. At the time of filming in 2023, she was still living in her native village.
