Irena Hyblerová

* 1937

  • "By then, the war was over, and the Russians came and moved into the castle. They robbed the castle and threw the Count out. First, he lived in the courtyard, where the people who helped in the fields stayed. They moved him into the servants' house, and there he was left without food, without anything. The Countess tried to cook, but she didn't know how because she had never cooked in her life. Someone said she made omelet dough, and it all spilled out onto the stove. Then they gathered them all at the institute for the deaf in Valašské Meziříčí. Simply, these Kinskýs were of Austrian nationality, whereas there were other Kinskýs who then got their property back in the Czech Republic. But these Kinskýs were evicted, and their whole family got deported to Austria."

  • "In 1948, on February 28, his superiors called my father and told him that he was being transferred to Valašské Meziříčí, not in the position he was in, but as a technical supervisor. He was doing building permits and legal things. But in Valašské Meziříčí, there were also communists in the office, and they called him in one day. First, he got a statement that they were terminating his employment contract based on a decision by a party group. So Dad objected, and they said that socialism is such a just social order that there would be no need for lawyers."

  • "There was a mill between Lešná, Příluky and Lhotka. A concrete road was being built there, and the mill was close by. And sappers were working there. They lived partly with my grandmother. She was ordered to vacate the room, and then the sappers slept in our room. There was a pub across the street, and that's where they had lunch. At the mill, they dug trenches, and when they finished, there was a German patrol. Perhaps there were some partisans in the area, I don't know who they were, and they shot the patrol. The Germans got very angry and said that Lešná must be slaughtered like Lidice. Mr. Count, because he knew German well and he was also somebody, he just settled it with the Germans, and nothing happened."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, 05.08.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 43:03
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, 06.08.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 37:20
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 3

    Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, 27.08.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 55:50
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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The Red Army men fought in a pub. I saw how they threw the dead man on the stairs

In dance school, 1952
In dance school, 1952
photo: witness archive

She was born on 9 September 1937 in Brno. She spent her childhood in Hodonín and Lešné near Valašské Meziříčí. During the Second World War, she witnessed air raids and German soldiers threatening to burn Lešná like Lidice. She remembers how people looted the castle in Lešná after the liberation and how Count Kinský’s family had to move out of it. Her father was a lawyer. After 1948, he lost his job because he disagreed with the Communists taking over the country. State Security followed the family. When she wanted to study, she was told by the school that it was undesirable because of her family background. Eventually, she managed to get into the secondary industrial school in Valašské Meziříčí and became a construction technician. After her marriage, she moved to Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. There, she switched different jobs. Like her parents, she made no secret of her opposition to totalitarianism and never joined the Communist Party. In 2023, she lived in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm.