Anna Hladká

* 1932

  • "He didn't speak German, but he was learning a little. I would tell him how to say it, and he learned a little bit. He got by somehow, but he didn't know much. He didn't know German, and my mother knew only a little bit of Czech. She used to go shopping, so at least she knew those things. But my father, he knew almost nothing. He only worked in the forests, and the two guys who worked with him were of German nationality."

  • "My grandmother and grandfather. They were my mom's parents. My mom's brother and sister lived in Moravice, and there was no farewell. Their names were written down, they left, and that was it. So my mom couldn't even say goodbye to her siblings. And the other younger sister lived in Janušov near Rýmařov, and she left, and they never saw each other again. My parents only visited Germany once. They saw each other once, but not again."

  • "They arrived with horses, and the soldiers went from one house to another, and the first thing they did was take the gold. They were only after gold, watches and things like that. And I heard that one time they took an alarm clock, and I guess it was set, so it started ringing. They had it in their pocket and thought it would explode, so they threw the alarm clock in the ditch."

  • "Then they deported us down to Uničov to the village of Lazce, and our whole family worked there for two years for the farmers. Then the forestry administration called us back. But our house was already occupied by other people, so they put us in a big house near Malá Morávka, where three families lived together. I also wanted to say that the lady from the farm in Haná knew German, and she taught me the most. I used to speak German all the time, and she told me that we couldn't do that and we had to speak Czech too."

  • "The Russians came to the house and took everything they liked. They mostly went for watches, rings and gold. People had it in the closet, and they took it from them. Then they went away, and it was calm again."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Dolní Moravice, 19.02.2020

    (audio)
    duration: 01:07:09
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
  • 2

    Šumperk, 08.03.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 01:31:53
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

My parents never learned Czech

Anna Hladká in 1938
Anna Hladká in 1938
photo: witness archive

Anna Hladká was born on 11 June 1932 in the village of Nová Ves (in German Neudorf, since 1961, a settlement of Dolní Moravice). Her parents Gustav and Frieda Riedel were, like the vast majority of people in this region, of German nationality. Her family was one of the few who did not have to join the German deportation in 1946. They did not escape eviction, however, and two years later, they were loaded onto a truck and taken to the Uničov region, where they had to work in agriculture for two years. When they returned, their house had a different owner, so they were given emergency accommodation in the neighbouring village of Malá Morávka. Anna then worked in the local sawmill. When the sawmill was closed after two years, Anna joined a ladder factory in Malé Morávka, where she met her future husband Josef. The couple then moved to Dolní Moravice. They raised their two daughters, Anna and Olga, there and lived together for forty years until the husband’s death. In 2020, Anna Hladká still lived in Dolní Moravice.