Emilie Fialová

* 1947

  • "It was just such nonsense, because someone called to ask for the comrade Fialová. And I said, 'You don't have to swear at me right away,' to the colleague who called me, and he heard it, and it was the deputy mayor of Nymburk." - "Was that when you worked in the waterworks?" - "No, it was still before I got into the waterworks. And then I couldn't get a job because I was fired." - "How long did it take you to find a new job?" - " About three-quarters of a year." - "So you didn't do anything until then?" - "Well, I was at home." - "And how about the husband? " - "He was employed in the waterworks and thanks to that they took me in to be a manual laborer there."

  • "Nobody was excited, because we were in charge of Milovice in the waterworks, where the soldiers moved in, so there had to be commuting. Sometimes I went there with them, too, with the boys, when various pipes and the like were checked. Otherwise, no one agreed with it, of course, the majority was against it, no one could afford that much, because even in the year 1968 you would still be stopped. It's not just that. But as I would say, one had to take it that way."

  • "Before, as they say, the bricks were walled up here and it was being burnt inside, and it was burning with the soot. But because it was smoking much and did a lot of trouble, after the transition, when the property was returned, it was forbidden to continue operating the brickyard. That's why we had to demolish the brickyard and a whole new one had to be built. It was not allowed to burn the soot at all, and there was a switch to gas heating, on which the brickyard was actually built. There was a project for that and the heating was gas."

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    Praha , 15.10.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 45:46
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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One had to swim in the water that was

Young Emilie Fialová
Young Emilie Fialová
photo: archiv pamětnice

Emilie Fialová, née Heroldová, was born on August 29, 1947 in Pardubice. She trained as a saleswoman and enjoyed singing. She also won the Talents competition in Pardubice, and in 1964 she was accepted into the military orchestra. During the performance, she met soldier Jan Fiala, whom she married in 1965, and they moved to Nymburk. At the beginning of the normalization, Emilia was fired for an innocent anti-communist joke. After some time, she found a job as a water worker. After the Velvet Revolution, the Fialas were restituted to a brickyard in Štěrboholy, Prague. They decided to renew it and from 1995 onwards bricks were produced again in Štěrboholy. Since then, Emilie has been working in the family brickyard and is gradually handing over the work to her children.