Jitka Coufalová

* 1950

  • "The next day we went into the town and they were shooting in the square because some people there didn't want to accept that they were here. A lot of people were lying at the pavements and bellow the curbs, but they shot five people there anyway. And so we ran to the dormitory and a boy was shot in front of the dormitory. He was nineteen years old and he was the son of our cooks who prepared all our food, he was their son and it was ugly. We were scared. So we picked ourselves up and actually from the classes or the work, the girls and I decided we weren't going to be there and we were going to go home because everything was broken. The pavements were broken, there were soldiers standing everywhere, we were all just scared. So we packed up and we went home. And when we were going from Prostějov to Olomouc, there were soldiers standing all along the railway with machine guns pointed at us, and we were just lying on the seats, scared to stick our heads out, and that was the first experience."

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    Litovel, 21.03.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 26:56
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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When you smile, the world becomes a better place

Jitka Coufalová in 2019
Jitka Coufalová in 2019
photo: Stories of Our Neigbours archive

Jitka Coufalová was born on 13 November 1950 in Olomouc as the youngest of five children. She grew up in nearby Litovel. She enrolled at the Secondary School of Clothing in Prostějov, majoring in men’s tailoring. In August 1968, she completed her apprenticeship and was staying at a boarding school in Prostějov when the troops of the occupying armies of the Warsaw Pact countries arrived in the town. On 25 August 1968, disoriented soldiers in Prostějov began firing on civilians. As a result, three lives were lost and many people wounded. Under dramatic circumstances, Jitka took the train home the next day, but had to return to the dormitory, damaged by the shelling, after a few days. After completing her apprenticeship, she worked as a seamstress for only a short time, after which she changed a number of jobs. In the summer of 1997, during a flood, the Coufal family home was flooded. The family lost all their furnishings.