Libuše Čevelová

* 1935

  • "When the frontline came, that's how we experienced it, just the two of us. My brother was still away [on forced labour], once he managed to escape, he made it home, but nobody wanted to hide him. My mother was afraid to let him sleep at home, so she begged the neighbours, my sister, do you think anyone helped? She let him sleep at home, she was nervous about it at first, but eventually, she told him to stay. No one there noticed he ran away. Mommy sat in the window all night watching, letting him sleep. When he left everyone was crying, it was horrible, no one knew what was going to happen to him." - "What was the process of your brother being forcibly deployed?" "Well horrible, daddy gone, the kid taken away from us, but he had to go."

  • "We walked around that prison, I know we walked around the windows and the prisoners were watching. They were there, but we didn't see Daddy. He was a political prisoner, that was all wrong, that was the worst thing that could have been." - "And when they took him to Poland, did you visit him there?" - "My mother went there with Mr. Janečka so that he could help her with translation for example. She told me that they met in a special room, they brought him there, he was completely devastated, they didn't know what to say to each other, so they kept quiet. Then the guard shouted 'over' and that was it. She hasn't seen him since. He wrote us letters. About once a month. It was brief, he couldn't write much, so it was just, 'How are you, and what about our piggy' and such. When he found out he had a death sentence, he wrote us to ask for a pardon. Mum submitted a petition, but they turned it down. Then he just sent a farewell letter. He wrote the letter the week before, he wrote goodbye three times for each of us, and that when you would be reading this letter, I would be on the other side already, it was so very unfortunate." - "How's that for the little girl?" - "Oh, I tell you, it was horrible. We found out before Christmas. I remember there was a towel by the door and a tin washbasin. She just kept crying in there. I saw her crying, so I cried too, but I don't think I fully understood the situation. She told me he was sentenced to death. She even let me read the letter."

  • Full recordings
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    Halenkovice, 10.08.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 51:38
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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They didn’t give us compensation until after 1989

Libuše Čevelová as a child
Libuše Čevelová as a child
photo: Libuše Čevelová’s personal archive

Libuše Čevelová, née Juřenová, was born to her parents František and Miloslava on 6 June 1935 in Halenkovice. She grew up with her eight years older brother Ladislav. In 1943, her father was arrested for distributing leaflets in the Pařík’s factory in Napajedla together with four other men. He was taken to Zlín, then to Uherské Hradiště, and later to the prison in Breslau (today the Polish city of Wrocław). Her brother was sent to forced labour. She was left alone with her mother and as an eight-year-old girl experienced repeated nightly searches of her house by the Gestapo. Letters from her father came every month from Breslau. He sent the last one as a farewell on 9 December 1943. He was executed the same day. Libuše lived with her mother and they suffered from lack of means. After the war, they obtained an orphan’s pension, allowing her mother to put some money aside. After the currency reform, there was nothing left of these savings. Libuše went to work right after municipal school to help her mother financially. After her marriage to Josef Čevela in 1957, the couple had four children. She continued working at the Svit factory until her retirement. She received financial compensation for her father’s death only after the revolution in 1989. At the time of the interview (2023), Libuše Čevelová lived in Halenkovice.