Her dream was within reach, but then the war divided both the world and her family.
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Helena Josefová, née Plachtová, was born on January 6, 1923 in Broumov. She spent her childhood in Police nad Metují, where she completed her primary school education and later learned to be a dressmaker. Before completing her training in 1938, she worked for several months as a nanny for a Jewish family, Viktor and Martha Steiner. The Nazis shot Viktor Steiner during the first days of the Heydrich Terror. During the war, Helena worked as a seamstress in Broumov in the Sudetenland, as part of the total mobilization. Her German relatives also lived there. However, during the post-war expulsion of Sudeten-Germans, they had to leave Broumov and move to Germany. In April 1948, Helena married the soldier Josef Josef, and they had a son named Pavel later that year. In December 1948, due to political reasons, her husband was dismissed from the army, which had a lasting impact on the family’s livelihood for several decades. In 1954, their daughter Eva was born. In 1962, Helena started working at Meopta Hynčice and remained there until her retirement. For another ten years, she worked as a dormitory supervisor at the dormitories of a vocational school in Broumov. As of 2023, she lived in a retirement home in Police nad Metují.
