At the Soviet Union borders
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Sláva Gajdošíková, née Novotná, was born on 10 February, 1923 in Holovni České in Eastern part of Volyně under the Soviet Union. During collectivisation two of her uncles, Václav and Alexander Novotný, were arrested due to property and taken to gulags, where Václav died and Alexander was released twenty three years later, after the death of J. V. Stalin. The father had to finish his trade licence and started work in Kolchose, where instead of a salary he used to get only natural products. Hard work undermined his health and he died in 1937. In 1942 Volyň was occupied by the German troops and a year later the witness had to go to forced labour to Germany. In August 1942 she experienced heavy bombing, which not only caused the farm she worked at to burn down, but also her good friend, Michail Leonov, died tragically. After war she married Jaroslav Gajdošík already in a collection camp in Osnabrück. Together they lived in a village of Kokory in Přerovsko region. In Kokory the witness first worked as a school keeper for several years and then in an army car repair in Olomouc, following as a welder at the machine works in Přerov and until retirement in agricultural cooperative Rozkvět Kokory. In 2016 she lived in the house that she and her husband built with their own hands. Sláva Gajdošíková died on 14 August 2020.
