Žofie Machničová

* 1922

National minorities, Inhabitants of Subcarpathian Rus, Witnesses of local events connected to WWII, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
1. 9. 1939 - The outbreak of the WW2, 21. 8. 1968 - Invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, 23. 2. 1949 – Beginning the forced agricultural collectivisation, 30. 5. 1953 – 3. 6. 1953 – The monetary reform and subsequent public upheaval, 2.11.1938 - First Vienna Award (Hungarian annexation of Carpathian Ruthenia and South Slovakia)
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    Husband

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    duration: 01:44
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    “When my husband arrived to Czechia, he married for the first time and had to children with his wife. She came from Theresienstadt. I was his second wife, this was our life.” — “You said he also came from Carpathia Ruthenia.” — “Yes, he came from Lutova, Ljuta. This is in Vysoke Berezne district. There are no roads, it was the region from which they crossed to Russia. My husband was an office, he took his boys when it was necessary to defend Czechoslovakia, he took twenty-seven boys and went to Russia across mountains and forests. Stalin imprisoned them and many of them died. When they were returning, half of them had been gone already.”

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    He knew what war was

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    duration: 01:01
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    “Thank God we survived everything. Today young boys would no longer go to sacrifice their lives for their country?” — “How did your husband respond to the return of the Russians in 1968, what was his experience?” — “He came to talk to them, asked them to be reasonable, he told them that he had been in the war, how many people had died etc. Then they spoke and left. He knew what war was.”

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    Stick to the land

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    duration: 01:44
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    “What does land mean for you?” — “It means that when I have land, I have my potato. Fresh one. The one I saw, the one I dig. You cannot live without the land. It will come to you. You plant a tree, a small tree, a currant bush, but everything will crawl to meet you. Stick to the land. You can have another job but if you have this as your second job, you can combine it. You are young, you will be tired. When you have animals, you milk them and will have cheese, honey, cottage cheese, everything. That is why people cannot say farewell to the village. You learn this only later.”

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    Praha, 26.03.2018

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    duration: 01:48:52
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Stick to the land. If you have land, you have a potato.

Žofie Machničová 2018
Žofie Machničová 2018
photo: natáčení ED
photo: natáčení ED
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Žofie Machničová was born in 1922 in Zavydovo, near Mukachevo, in Carpathia Ruthenia. She was the youngest of eight siblings. Her father died when she was five. After leaving primary school she left for Czechoslovakia in 1937. Together with her sister and later alone she worked at farms in Dohalice and Barchov, Eastern Bohemia. After the war she married and together with her husband she worked in agriculture, first on their own farm, later in a cooperative. From 1960 she was employed with the Czech Railway as a signalwoman. In 1980, on retirement, she moved to Prague with her second husband Vasil Machnič, a veteran of the Eastern front. Her husband died in 1989. Since 2017 Žofie Machničová has lived in the Home of War Veterans, Central Military Hospital Prague.

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  • Žofie Machničová 2018
    Žofie Machničová 2018
    photo: natáčení ED
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  • Žofie Machničová 2018
    Žofie Machničová 2018
    photo: natáčení ED
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