Věra Kopalová

* 1941

  • “Milín station fell under the Pilsen track, and every six months a recruiter came to the communist party from the Pilsen railway. So they summoned us, and then he talked a lot, then he turned to me and said: ´Well, how about you, comrade? You are such a perspective type, you could..´ I replied: "You would probably not take me in.´No, do not think so. And why would we not take you? 'I said that the father was still locked up.' I have a father imprisoned for political reasons. 'He stood up, did not say a word. But he turned to my colleague the way I looked at you today, and said: ´And you, comrade, you could come to us.´”

  • “Some of the guards were more pleasant, it was Opava. That was the first time, my mother took my brother along, who was about two years old, and of course he did not know my father at all. And everywhere it was the way you see it in movies today: somewhere there were the bars, another place there was glass, a corridor, where the policemen walked; we stood on one side, and on the other there was our father, but nowhere was it was possible to just hand it over, only to touch our fingers. In Opava I first experienced the fact that he was a brother, but he was small, he was only one and a half or two years old. The bachelor turned away and said, ´Šobr, have you ever carried the kid in your arms?´ And my father said, ´No, Mr. Commander.´- "Then give him the boy." So he handed him over and Dad first held my brother.”

  • “The property was confiscated, they left us only something, when we moved to Milín, because we were only little with our brother, so we had a stamped confiscate to lease it. So we lived with a leased furniture from Prague. They took something. I also remember this as a little girl, as they wore leather coats and one of them screamed at my mother terribly, asking where she put the books. My mom said: 'Well, here they were, you were taking them for yourselves.' - 'Well, I have only two parts and I do not have any more!'”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Milín, 25.09.2018

    (audio)
    duration: 02:07:33
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Milín, 24.01.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:09:17
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Do not overtop anyone, but do not demean yourself before anyone

Věra Kopalová 1958
Věra Kopalová 1958
photo: archiv pamětnice

Věra Kopalová, née Šobrová, was born on May 27, 1941 in Milín. The family soon moved to Prague - Vršovice. The father, Karel Šobr, was an engineer of agricultural buildings. He worked first at the Prague Land office in Prague and later as the Secretary of Foreign Trade Minister, Mr. Hubert Ripka. The mother Anna, born Maříková, was a housewife. Věra Kopalová attended the first class in Kodaňská Street in Prague. After the communists came to power in 1948, Hubert Ripka emigrated and offered the same to Karel Šobr’s family. But he refused due to family reasons. Karel Šobr was fired from the ministry and worked in the uranium mines in Příbram for some time. In November 1949 he was arrested by the state police and testified in the trial with Milada Horáková. He was subsequently tried in the process of JUDr. Čupera et al. and sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason. The family was closely monitored by the state security, its property was confiscated, and the mother, with two young children, had to emigrate to her brother František Mařík in Milín. Here the witness attended elementary school from the fourth to the eighth grade, and the next three years she attended the gymnasium in Příbram thanks to her uncle´s intercession. She remembers the rare visits of her father in various prisons all over the Czechoslovakia. After the grammar school she joined the mines in Rudná in Příbram - Vrančice shaft and then she worked at the ticket office at Milín railway station until retirement. In 1960 her father was released during amnesty. In the same year Věra Kopalová got married, and her three children were born. In August 1968 the Milín station was designed for unloading the Soviet troops, and Věra Kopalová remembers their arrival and meeting the soldiers. In spite of her inadequate cadre origin the comrades tried to convince her to join the communist party several times. After the revolution she and her brother pursued their father’s rehabilitation, but he had not lived long enough to witness it. Věra Kopalová currently lives in Milín.