Jana Blažejová

photo: Archiv pamětnice
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Jana Blažejová was born on the 26th of July in 1937 in Horní Sloupnice. In 1942, the family moved to Bratislava, where her father, an architect, got a job. Jana was spending the spring of 1942 with her mother in Sloupnice in East Bohemia where grandmother and grandfather Průšek and Jana’s uncle Ota lived. Grandfather and uncle were providing a hiding place for Josef Kužela, a student and anti-Nazi resistance fighter, who was sought by the Gestapo. The hiding place was soon divulged and on the 2nd of May 1942, the Gestapo office of Pardubice conducted a raid. Jana’s mother, Miroslava Horská, grandfather Josef Průšek and uncle Otakar Průšek were subjected to cruel interrogations as it was at the time when the Nazi terror after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich peaked, and they were sentenced to death. The Nazis executed them in the vicinity of the Zámeček villa. Jana’s uncle, Josef Průšek, was deported to a concentration camp and Jana, aged 5, was left with her widowed grandmother. After the war, her uncle Josef returned from the concentration camp and became Jana’s legal guardian. After leaving basic school, Jana apprenticed as a shop assistant. In 1956, she got married and the newlyweds moved to Ostrava. In 1958, they moved back to East Bohemia where they raised their two sons.