"How Daddy felt... It must have been hard for him. He didn't really find it hard to nationalize. I know he said, 'I had to worry, and now I get a fixed salary.' When he was employed, the mother was employed, there was a cooperage, boxes for medical instruments, devices that were transported overseas were made, so they had to be wooden; it was just a pretty good trade, even as a national company. My father was a real good man; he didn't bother anyone. There was no swearing or hatred at home. We just carried on with the life the way we could."
"So it was completed in 1945. There were the most modern stands that Dad could do. So we lived in a makeshift one. In the year 1948, it all went awry somehow, another establishment came. The sawmill was nationalized. They waited, until we finalized the construction, and when it was all done, the sawmill was nationalized, so even though it wasn't supposed to be nationalized, more than 50 employees were supposed to be nationalized, and we had two retirees employed at that time. Everyone was working. I had to carry heavy wooden logs. Everything that had to be done, the children were involved in completing it, so it was nationalized, the sawmill was nationalized, the debts were not, the debts were paid until the age of 50. And in 1953, which is curious, saw the cancelled."
"The Germans were at our sawmill. The Germans were accommodated there. I also remember the carpet raid in Brno when in April. When two planes were returning from the raid of Brno, it flew over Holubice and the soldiers' parents housed soldiers, I think they were Romanians. It was a huge crater in the ground, I remember. My grandfather and uncle, who were still there, blew it out, so luckily they survived, so they came to us."
Bohumila Louková was born on September 14, 1938 in Brno. She lived with her family in Holubice near Brno. The mother, Antonie Franková, came from poor circumstances, while the father, František Frank, was the son of a rich farmer. Bohumila had two more brothers. Her father built his own sawmill in Holubice, a successful business, which was set on fire probably intentionally just after the war. The family built a new, more modern sawmill in a short time. The Franks soon lost it during nationalization. The family house was destroyed by a carpet raid during the war, during which died the grandmother, the father´ mother. The family lived hiding in the cellar for many years; later the parents built a house on their own. Bohumila first attended a boys’ class at a school in Rousínov. She later studied textile engineering and graduated in 1957. She was a member of a singing and drama group, attended the group of Pioneer and participated in traditional costume festivities. She loved sports. She went through the Orel, Sokol and enjoyed participating in the Spartakiads. She could not afford full-time university studies for financial or staff reasons. Later, she studied distantly at the University of Economics in Bratislava. After returning to Bohemia, she joined the Brno Research Institute of Knitting. She met her first husband on a business trip and moved with him to Varnsdorf. In 1969, however, the husband himself emigrated without a family. The witness and her little daughter thus found themselves in a difficult financial situation. The second husband was 22 years older; they married in 1972 and had a second daughter together. Bohumila worked on the national committee in Varnsdorf, in the company Wholesale of clothing goods, and later in Rumburk in Rukov as production manager. In 1986, she returned to Brno with her family and suffered a stroke two years later due to exhaustion. She returned to the north and still lives in the village of Rybniště in the Šluknov foothills (2019).
