"[We did our exercises at the rally], it was a great experience for us because it was huge in 1948. I have amazing memories of that, if only the parade alone. Gottwald was on the platform when we walked down the embankment. The grandstand where he was sitting was on the left, like this. As we approached the grandstand where Gottwald and his comrades were, we were ordered to look right so we wouldn't look at him. That's the way it was, that was it."
"This is just an episode. During the war, my uncle used to go for walks. There was a lot of snow everywhere, and all windows had to be blacked out. But because of the snow, I guess the sky was clear, maybe the moon was shining. Near Světice, which is past Strančice, there is a bridge over the railway line to Prague and down to southern Bohemia to Budějovice in the opposite direction. He climbed up the hillside because he heard a train coming. Later, he told us, 'I saw a freight train with barred windows. I thought, what are they carrying? I saw all round shapes.' He hadn't realised then that those were actually heads. It was a train full of prisoners being taken to a concentration camp. Two of them managed to escape and ended up with the Javůreks in our village. They stayed until the morning. The Javůreks offered to get them clothes and let them stay there, but they didn't want to. They just ate dinner and left in the morning. But they [Germans] had them in their sights anyway, followed them and shot them somewhere. It's just a brief episode but my uncle was quite upset about it. He said it was a whole freight train of eight or nine cars and the prisoners were crammed in."
"Eva Roubíčková was in our class. She was from Všestary and was the daughter of Jewish parents. She was very pretty, her father was employed in Prague in a high-end textiles shop, I think somewhere on Národní třída. She was beautifully dressed, and since she was from Všestary where there was no school, the children from Všestary went mostly to Říčany. She had an uncle and an aunt here who had one child each, but both the aunt and the uncle were married to an Aryan so they didn't go to the concentration camp right away. One day we were walking home from school, and she had this beautiful plum-blue coat, gold buttons, and a beret of the same fabric. When we were saying goodbye and she headed to Všestary, she said goodbye and added, 'I'm not coming to school tomorrow.' We were surprised, but she didn't say why, we asked why, and so we came home, and when we said it at home, my mother knew right away what was going on. When a neighbour came over, they were talking about it like it was probably some kind of deportation. When we went to school the next morning across the bridge - there was a wooden footbridge and she would always wait for us at there till we came from our side - Evička was nowhere to be found. The train station was already full of Jewish citizens and Evička Roubíčková came with her briefcase when she saw us coming. She had a doll in her hand and a little, likely with some things for the doll, and came and waved to us. My classmates and I would remember that always. Of course, we never heard from her again."
Jaromíra Fassmannová, née Polanecká, was born in Prague on 26 May 1933 and lived her whole life in Strančice. She had a brother Karel, five years older than her. Her father was a Czech and biology teacher at local high school in Mnichovice. Her mother initially took care of the family, later she was employed in a law firm. The family farm in Menčice, where her uncle farmed, played an important role in the family’s life, especially during the Second World War. In 1948, his family refused to participate in collectivisation, was evicted from the family farm and the farm was confiscated. Having completed five years at the primary school in Strančice, Jaromíra continued at the high school in Mnichovice. She was admitted to the grammar school in Benešov in 1945. She completed her final senior high year at the newly opened grammar school in Říčany where she graduated in 1951. She longed to study languages but was not admitted to university because of her cadre profile. She worked her entire professional life in the health care sector as a laboratory technician, a job she enjoyed very much. She worked at the IV Internal Clinic of the General University Hospital in Prague for 21 years, and later at the haematology laboratory in Oblouková Street. Sport was an important part of Jaromíra’s life; she was a lifelong member of Sokol. She and her husband Jiří raised daughter Jitka and son Jan. Jaromíra Fassmannová died on 6 January 2023.
