The horrors of war through a butcher’s window
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Božena Koreňová, née Ranochová, was born on 16 February 1931 in Ostrava. Her father owned a butcher shop, her mother was a housewife and occasionally helped in the butcher shop. Božena spent her childhood partly playing with friends, but she also spent a lot of time in her father’s shop or at the slaughterhouse. The butcher shop continued to operate during the Second World War when meat and sausages were issued on ration cards. Her parents concentrated mostly on work and were not interested in politics. During the Second World War, Božena saw Jewish customers disappear. After the war, her father’s store lost German customers due to their deportation. She survived the end of the war in the basement, witnessing the horrific events. She experienced the looting of German property. After the end of the war, the business was still struggling with meat shortages. In 1952, her father had to join the national enterprise Masna and the shop was nationalized by the communists. He could no longer work there himself, so he changed jobs in other butcher shops in the town. Božena graduated from the business school and raised two sons with her husband Otakar Koreň. In 2021 she lived in Ostrava.
