Ladislava Kyptová

* 1941

  • „To jsme taky zažili strach. Jak se sundali nápisy z obcí, že to je ta a ta obec, tak to u nás taky sundali, tak jsme měli strach, že půjdou přes nás. Ale on je opravdu někdo navedl přes Libeř, aby šli, protože počítali s tím, že u nás je tolik serpentýn, že se tam někde vybourají a že se to zastaví. Tak Němci šli přes Psáry a Rusové šli přes nás. A to jsme měli teda strach, že opravdu nahoře v těch zátočinách někdo spadne. Představte si, manžel stál za záclonou a počítal ty tanky. Ty jely první. Měli jsme nový potah silnice. Ty tanky počítal do šedesáti nebo devadesáti, teď už přesně nevím, pak už ne. A když přejely, tak byl nějakou chvíli klid, tak se doběhl podívat na tu silnici, říkal: ,To je oraniště, ty tanky.´ A potom jely rakety. Říkali, že to bylo země-vzduch. A ty byly hrozně dlouhý, na těch podvozcích. To jsme říkali: ,Tak a teď je tady máme.´ Protože ty serpentýny tam nahoře, to snad nevyřídí. Oni měli tak dobré řidiče, že všichni projeli. Ty rakety, ty počítal snad do třiceti, ale pak taky už ne.“

  • „A pamatuju si, že babička říkala: ,Prokristapána, jsou tu Rusové!´ To si pamatuju, že se modlila a křižovala. Tenkrát jsme se v tom krechtě pořád modlily, v jednom kuse. A teď jsme začaly zase. Jenomže oni přišli a říkala babička s maminkou, že byli hodní. A měli s sebou nějakého malého chlapce, prý asi desetiletého, a měl jejich uniformu. To byla asi, jak říkali, ta práčata. Já jsem přišla do Senice, tam ležel nějaký člověk v posteli, měl velký holínky. A já jsem si říkala, kde ten táta to sebral. A budila jsem ho. On teda neměl čepici, tak jsem myslela, že to není voják, měl normálně kabát. A babička: ,Prokristapána, nech ho, to je Rus!´ Tak si pamatuju tohle, že to byl taky zážitek, že jsem se potom začala bát.“

  • "We all had to be interviewed. I worked here in Jílové in Směr as a secretary to the director. And they all had to. They asked the question if we agree to the entry of troops to us. They asked almost nothing else, only this. And I told them that I think it could have been handled diplomatically, that they didn't have to come here because it could have been handled that way. And then I cried because my dad just died and they told me I could leave. But I remember that when our acquaintances used to come to our place, we used to have such meetings, so everyone had a lot of talk that they wouldn't say that they agreed. And when we got together, everyone said that he had to say it. Everyone had to say. So I said, 'Well, you see, you've all been arguing here, how can you say you don't agree. In the end, you were all afraid. I said that I think it could have been resolved diplomatically. And they gave me peace.' And they (members of the vetting commission) told me, 'But comrade, after all, it was no longer possible to go through the diplomatic route, there was already a counter-revolution here!'"

  • "Oh yes, they made attempts. And so I told my dad, and he said, 'Look, don't go anywhere. Say that you want to work in the Youth Union and that you don't feel like it yet.' So I said it and I repeated it several times and they gave me a break. And then at work, when I was, then again. And I was about nineteen... No, I was over twenty. And I was saying, 'Look, they stopped me here in the corridor and they want me to go to the side.' I was saying that to my friend. And she was saying - she was already in the party because she was seven years older - and she was saying 'Don't go anywhere! I got in there without knowing...Look, I have to go to every brigade, I have to go everywhere...Don't you go anywhere!' And I said, 'They already called me that in the village and my dad gave me this advice.'' Then say it anyway! ' So I said the same, and they gave me a break from then on."

  • "I experienced (the Psáry massacre) as a small child. When rumor came from Psáry that a German had been shot there, the Germans stopped and went around all the houses in the village. And wherever they found a man, they shot them all. Those from the edge of the village, who learned that they were shooting, so some people saved themselves in the fields. And here in Libeř, they made jams for the Germans, that is, they cut down trees across the road above the bends. And when they learned what they were doing in Psáry, the male worked at night, they hurriedly removed the jams again. So that they wouldn't stop here and do the same thing they did in Psáry... My classmate lost his father like that."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Libeř, 05.11.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:57:22
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
  • 2

    Praha, 24.04.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 01:53:48
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
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How great history passed through Libeř

young Ladislava Kyptová
young Ladislava Kyptová
photo: archiv pamětníka

Ladislava Kyptová, née Stejskalová, was born on May 4, 1941 in Libeř, near Prague. She spent the last days of the war in hiding with her family, because German soldiers passed through the village and murdered several men in nearby Psáry who tried to prevent them from advancing on Prague. After the war, she grew up in a peasant environment, which was first affected by compulsory income taxes and after 1948 by collectivization. Although her grandparents joined the unified agricultural cooperative (JZD) voluntarily, she also remembers several cases of expropriation. She graduated from a tailoring school in the 1950s, but worked in administration all her life. Twice she was offered membership in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), but managed to talk herself out of being active in the youth union. She and her husband refused to emigrate to West Germany, so she lived through the occupation in 1968 in her native Libeř. During normalization checks, she stated that she believes that the crisis surrounding the Prague Spring could have been resolved through diplomatic means. After 1989, she took care of a distant relative of Josef Kutnohorský, a Mauthausen survivor. She still keeps his memoirs, which he did not have time to publish before his death. In 2022, she lived in Libeř.