"I was in Opava, and there was a letter and I was in the classroom at school and this lady came in, her name was Nina Strážnická, the Mrs. Rusínka, and she said to the teacher if she could take me out, and so they whispered to each other, and we went to the cloakroom and she said, 'Sit down.' And I said, 'Why? It's school...' 'Sit down.' So I sat down, she had the letter, they were checking, she had the letter and she says, 'Here's something.' So I started reading, I was crying and she says, it was Friday, because there was Saturday when it was still school, 'I'll take you to the station tomorrow and you go home, I'll write everything down.' So she did everything and I came to Nový Jičín, but on Monday I had to go back to school, so on Sunday I went back. And now I walk in, there were two stair steps, we were upstairs, two stair steps, the door opens and my mother is in the doorway in a scarf, there was a hug, amazing."
"There was, as they say when children are alone, the guardian, but he had two children himself, he was supposed to take care of us with food and everything. So sometimes we'd get, we'd get hungry rather, so there was a dairy down at that gate, so always there, the lady shopkeeper didn't have the children, so always, 'Come on, you'll help me,' so I'd always go in the evening before she closed to help take the jugs out, they were the big milk jugs, or do something, so I'd get a roll, my brother was waiting, he didn't go, so we'd share, they'd lock it in front of us. There were tickets, like grocery tickets, and that was smaller, and now my father changed it, when there was bread, that was locked. Only I knew I had the drawer out and I knew I was going to get the bread, he figured it out, so he only set us up what we had for that day, sometimes he was gone for two days and there was nothing."
"Well, they used to hurt us, there's always some friction between the kids, I don't remember that, it was more like afterwards, when we lived in the city, we have to say, that was part of it, they used to call us names, so we... I didn't understand, I didn't understand for two years, it was only when I went to school that I learned Czech. I was the type to monkey behind everyone who went... Well, I was unlucky all the time, when they saw me, I was with the headmaster, so it was always, 'Please, you're German, you know what you're... don't do that, you'll get in trouble!'"
Full recordings
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Klub rodáků a přátel města Nového Jičína, 21.03.2019
Krista Mičková, born Petrová, was born in 1941 in Kunín in northern Moravia to a family of Sudeten Germans. After the war, her mother was arrested and imprisoned for nine years. With her father and siblings, she was placed in a concentration camp in Nový Jičín, where they awaited deportation. Eventually, probably because of her imprisoned mother, they were allowed to stay in Czechoslovakia. Their father worked in Štramberk, so the children were often left home alone overnight. The authorities appointed a guardian for them and Krista Mičková started school and learned Czech. She completed the second grade of primary school in Příbor and Opava, at that time she stayed in an orphanage. While both her parents left for the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964, she remained in Czechoslovakia. In 1991 she became a member of the Association of Sudeten Germans. She died on 11 February 2021.
