Eva Kubeláková

* 1940

  • “Our house was the first one in the village, and the minister of agriculture Ďuriš arrived from the direction of Roudnice. People from the agricultural cooperative went out of the village to welcome him. We were on the roof of our garage and were looking as the crowd was coming to Račiněves. Ďuriš’s deputy came to us and he was persuading dad to join the cooperative, promising him that they would give him a job and make him a chairman and what not. Obviously, dad did not join the cooperative. During the harvest time in 1952, some man came to us and he was recording every single bag of wheat that we produced. We delivered eight thousand kilogram of wheat above the required quota, but we never got the money for it anymore. A check was sent here (to Nové Losiny), but we didn’t receive the money anymore.”

  • “Then on September 2nd dad went to his brother’s to shoe a horse. I went out of the house and I came back and said: ‘They are coming to our house.’ It was really so. After a while they came into the house and asked about our father. Brother said that he went to shoe the horse. I went there on my bike to fetch him. Father returned, but he had to stay in the yard while mom was in the kitchen. We stayed inside with her. A house search was done. They asked whether we had money and gold. We said that we did not. But if we find it, it will be considered aggravating circumstance. They made records of everything. Chairs, table for children, radio, washing machine… Then they led father inside and ordered him to change clothes and go with them to the municipal authority office to sign the protocol. Father was sitting on the children’s chair as he was putting on his shoes and he was crying: ‘I will not come back anymore.’ ‘You will be back, you will just sign it.’ They made him get into the car and they took him to Roudnice where he was imprisoned until his trial on September 30th. They sentenced him to six years. His brother was sentenced in April in Prague-Ruzyně to six years of imprisonment.”

  • “We were having lunch in the kitchen when there was a sudden explosion. Dad and Mum grabbed me and my sister under the arms, Mum took a loaf of bread, we rushed out in front of the house and found out there was an air raid on Kralupy.”

  • “On October 19th we went to visit father in prison for the first time. I don’t remember where it was, because he served his sentence in several prisons. In the evening we arrived to Roudnice and my cousin was waiting for us there, and she handed an envelope to my mom. Mom opened it and the letter said: ‘Within twenty-four hours, a truck will be sent for you at 8 a.m. to take you to Nové Losiny, Šumperk district, Moravia.’ I forgot to mention that we had been already evicted one time before.”

  • “We came to Roudnice with my mum in the evening. We were awaited by Anna Biňovcová, who gave Mum a letter, which stated: ‘A car will be sent to you within twenty-four hours. Nové Losiny, Šumperk District, Moravia.’ But the car didn’t come at eight a.m., it came around eleven. Just before that they wanted to move us out to Václav Biňovec... Mum informed the district [office] that all our things had been confiscated. They replied that we could take our kitchen and bedroom [things] as furnishing, but the washing machine, the bike, the radio - that all had to stay.”

  • “[Q: What do you remember about the fall of Communism?] Haha! I didn’t sleep and watched the TV, and I lost about five kilos... I watched the broadcast well into the night, I went to work in the morning. I was glued to the TV and constantly happy.”

  • “Then the Russians arrived, and so my brother-in-law started looking for some tour abroad. He found one tour to Sweden over Christmas. They flew to Stockholm on Christmas Eve and all the tour participants have remained there. Only four or five people returned home, and they then sent us a letter and informed us about it. They had a three-year-old daughter here and they were not allowed to take her with them. They hoped that they would get her there within three months, but it eventually took eight years.”

  • “Around eleven o’clock, two uncovered trucks arrived. Wood and coal was loaded into one of them, and we got into the other truck. The sofa was placed in the rear part of the truck and we were sitting on it with mom during the whole journey covered with duvets. Nobody cared about us. In the evening they stopped somewhere to eat on the way, and then we continued riding at night. Suddenly they stopped and walked around the truck. Mom told us to go and see what was happening. There was an underpass under a viaduct. They were discussing something. You might think that I am making this up, but it was really like this. The first truck backed up and then started moving forward, and since the cabinet from our bedroom was loaded on top, it hit the bottom side of that viaduct. There was a steam locomotive going on the railway track just above us at that moment, and there were sparks flying everywhere. Mom was screaming as they drove under the viaduct.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Nové Losiny, 07.04.2015

    (audio)
    duration: 01:50:24
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Šumperk, 17.07.2015

    (audio)
    duration: 01:29:21
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Nobody can imagine how much it tore the family apart

Eva Kubeláková (Biňovcová) v roce 1958.JPG (historic)
Eva Kubeláková

Eva Kubeláková, née Biňovcová, was born November 8, 1940 in Račiněves. Her father Josef Biňovec and his brother Václav farmed there on 65 hectares of agricultural land, of which 10 hectares they were renting. While the family survived WWII unharmed, the rise of communists to power resulted in a disaster for them. During the collectivization of the countryside, her father was sentenced for sabotage to six years of imprisonment and confiscation of all property as a result of failing to meet the required delivery quotas, which were set excessively high. His brother Václav was also sentenced to six years, and he has not returned from prison anymore. He suffered a fatal injury while working in a coal mine in Rtyně v Podkrokonoší. Both families were then evicted from their farms. Eva Kubeláková and her sister and mother were transported by truck to Nové Losiny in the foothills of the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains 270 kilometres away. The mother and her thirteen-year-old daughters had to start working at a State Farm there. They were made to do the worst jobs and they were constantly watched by a member of the police. Her father spent four and a half years in prison. Four years after his return he died of a stroke on the same day when he was summoned to a committee that was to decide on granting him the disability pension. When Eva’s mother then requested to receive a widow’s pension, her petition was turned down with the explanation that her husband would not have received any allowance anyway. Eva Kubeláková was always very close to her twin sister Ludmila. However, after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies to Czechoslovakia, Ludmila and her husband and son emigrated to Sweden in December 1969. She was forced to leave her three-year-old daughter Soňa at home. Since the authorities had suspected that the family might be planning to emigrate to the West, they did not grant the permission to leave to all the family members. It took another eight years before the Czechoslovak authorities eventually allowed Soňa to join her family in Sweden. Eva Kubeláková remained in Nové Losiny. As she says, she has never gotten used to this region but she does not want to leave it because her children and grandchildren live there.