The Gestapo came straight to the classroom to get a classmate.
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Jitka Čampulová, née Pivcová, was born on 6 October 1926 in Staré Město pod Landštejnem into the family of Václav Pivec, a senior responder of the Financial Guard, and his wife Božena, née Št’astná. Both parents came from Deštná near Jindřichův Hradec and met after Václav Pivec returned as a legionary from Russia in 1920. Jitka had a younger brother Jiří. The family moved several times before the war because of her father’s job. Before the war, they lived in Staré Město pod Landštejnem, Schönwald, Aš and Kaplice, from where they fled to Soběslav in 1938, after the occupation of the border area. During the war, the witness attended the business academy in Tábor and witnessed how the Gestapo came to her classroom to get her classmate Irena Hešová, whose parents were executed in Mauthausen during the Heydrichiad. Three local teachers and the headmaster were also executed. Her schooling was ended early by the forced labour of the entire class. In 1943-1945 she was employed at the Lada sewing machine factory in Soběslav. After the war, the family returned to Kaplice, where Jitka Čampulová witnessed the deportation of the German population. In 1950, she married Záboj Čampula, who was expelled from the law faculty for supporting President Edvard Beneš in February 1948. She worked all her life as a clerk, lived a family life and paid little attention to politics. She never joined the Communist Party and did not participate in any politically motivated events. She raised two children and lived in Kaplice in 2023.
