Miloslava Medová

* 1932

  • “Or do you know what we had for dinner during the war? We had a rye field. We didn't put it in the mill. Dad crushed it in a grindery on some mortar. The water powered it, the water wheel, and so it milled itself. And our mother baked pancakes on the stove from that. And so it would not scratch in our throats that much, she made blueberry jam in the summer. And she gave it to us to make it slip into a throat more easily. it was our dinner together with a cup of milk. And do you know what all of the children from the village had for breakfast in the morning? Groats. The groats that were given to the animals, we ate groats. It was ground grain. It was not flour, but groats. The goat´s milk was poured over it. Everyone had goats in the village, we had three. So the milk was poured over the groats, salt into it and that was our breakfast. There was no bread. My mother had to lock the bread for the last year so we would not eat it. That's how it was.”

  • “I would like people to treat each other nicely, to help each other, so that there is no resentment among them. So, there will never be a war again. To keep our children from experiencing it, the hunger and then the misery everywhere. We should behave politely to our Earth. And not destroy it. The rainforests should not be cut down. Water is diminishing. People should save water, not to take a bath every day. We used to bathe once a week and it had to be enough. The water was heated on the stove. And in the summer, we bathed in a stream. In winter, my dad cut a hole in the race and we washed in the icy water. We were used to the cold, we did not have a flu for the whole winter, neither a running nose nor cough. Now people are too spoiled. It is this way."

  • “And then, when the Germans had to leave… do you know that I was ill for two weeks? I was completely sick from the fact how they had to leave after the war. The expulsion. I didn't even go to the village. I got up on the hill, we lived a bit aside. So, I watched them from a distance as they were leaving. The Germans from the surrounding villages gathered in a Sokol house in Cvikov and then had to leave by train. I was sick for fourteen days, with fever. I suddenly lost all of my friends.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Nový Bor, 22.05.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 02:10:21
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Nový Bor, 07.06.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:34:32
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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The expulsion of the Germans came, and I suddenly lost all my friends

Miloslava Medová, 1955
Miloslava Medová, 1955
photo: archiv pamětnice

Miloslava Medová, né Filipová, was born on May 5, 1932 in Rousínov village (a part of a village that is nowadays callled Svor) near Nový Bor. She spent her childhood and a part of her adult life in Rousínov, where many glass factories and grinderies were located. After Munich in 1938 the family went to relatives in the Vysočina region and return back after a few months when the situation in the Sudetenland was calmer. She had good relations with German fellow citizens before and during the war, and very badly carried the post-war relocation of German friends and acquaintances from Rousínov. At the age of fourteen, she joined the dispatch company in Nový Bor as a translator and a controller of glass products. She worked there until 1950 including a short break. In 1954 she married Alfred Med. She spent most of her career in the glass factory in Svor. She experienced the August occupation of the Warsaw Pact armies. The whole family had problems with the ruling regime, refusing to join the Communist Party. Together with her husband they raised three children: Sona, Joseph and Sylva. She retired in 1986. In 2019 she lived in Nový Bor.