My life seemed ordinary
Marie Čálková, née Bártová, later Šnoblová, was born on 25 December 1927 in Prague to Marie Bártová. She never knew her biological father. She spent her childhood in Bystřice u Benešova with her grandparents. There she experienced the beginning of the German occupation. In 1939, she moved with her mother, stepfather and half-sister to Vysočany in Prague. From 1941, the family lived in a malting plant in Podbaba, where her father worked. In 1942-1944 she studied at a two-year business school in Žižkov. From 1944 she was totally deployed in Holešovice in a German arms parts company. In the spring of 1945, she and her supervisor gave food to prisoners from the Litoměřice concentration camp at Bubny station. During the Prague Uprising she was imprisoned by the Germans in the cellar of the malt house for about four days. After the liberation she moved with her family to Chabařovice in Ústí nad Labem. In 1950 she married František Čálek and they raised one son. In the following years she worked as a zookeeper or economist, later as the head of the local post office. In 2024 she lived in Prague.