All my classmates started speaking German and then hated me
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Libuše Beranová, born Rakušanová, was born on February 8, 1932 in Ústí nad Labem. She went to school for the first time in September 1938, a month later, after the signing of the Munich Agreement, her hometown became part of Nazi Germany. Relations between the Czechs and Germans, which had been deteriorating for a long time, further escalated at that time. Libuša’s father lost his job because of his Czech nationality, and the German-speaking children at school bullied Libuše. After the incident, when she was also in immediate physical danger, the family decided to quickly leave the city. They moved to the hinterland, initially living with their grandmother in Mladá Boleslav, then in unsatisfactory conditions in Vinohrady, Prague. After a long search, the father finally got a job as a manager and a service apartment in Prague’s Letná. The family settled there permanently. At Letná they experienced a relatively dramatic end to the war, after the outbreak of the Prague Uprising there were fierce battles between the insurgents and members of the SS units. After the war, Libuše graduated from a multi-year gymnasium and then a distance learning faculty. She aspired to become a kindergarten teacher, she briefly devoted herself to this work, but due to her ‘staff profile’ and later health problems, she had to leave the position. She then worked as a worker in a disabled people’s cooperative. She raised two children, is a widow and still lives (year 2022) in Letná in Prague.
