Marie Pešková

"They were all drunk, wasted - so to speak. The officer entered the house, my mother had all beddings white. And as he had dirty boots and a uniform, he hopped into those beds. My mother told him something. And he said, 'Ne ponimayu.' He climbed out of bed and slammed a large knife into the Umakart tabletop. And he started chasing me around the table, I ran to the yard. Well, he would have raped me. These are the memories we had before the Russians withdrew, that was "God's punishment". Mom, poor woman, we three kids. When there was a war and they bombed Zlín, we had to go to shelters. Or she was out with us, so she threw us in a ditch and lay down on us. It's just that when you grow up, you remember what she had to endure. "

It was 1969. We went from the Vatican to Urbino, where they had even bigger newspapers than the Red Law was. It was written about the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and how in 1969 they still shot at certain people. It's unfortunate what happened. There was a huge highway through which it was written in white letters: 'Vivat Dubček, Vivat Svoboda!' We drove through it and got to Rome. In Rome we met Czech priests who studied there and stayed, they spoke perfect Czech, we did not speak perfect Italian by any chance. They showed us what they could in Rome. And they arranged for us - because several buses from all over the country came together - that we had reached the pope's summer residence, Gandolfo. We sat in the third row and the two rows in front of us consisted of priests only. And what did the pope say in Latin about Czechoslovakia, they translated it into Czech and then gave it to us. "Do you remember what he said? " " I recall the outline of what he said, unfortunately, I've lost the paper when I was moving, when my husband died. "Did he say anything about the political situation? He told us to persevere, and to not give up as a time, when communism would fall would come. He told us stick together, to love each other and so on. They cared for our state and believed in God."

"In 1996, I learned that the Germans didn´t feel like giving us any compensation and so the state would give us a one-off compensation of 100 000,- Kč. And because we were three, I wouldn´t omit my sisters, I applied for each of us separately in writing. Now I started to find out, because when..I have forgotten to say: when in 1953 there was the money reform, and our father before they had executed him (because Baťa seemed to be paying him well, it was the First Republic money), put twenty thousand crowns in each of our bank accounts, so when we became of age we would have something to start life with. Unfortunately, when I was 16, in 1953, there was the money reform and we didn´t get anything. Then my second father wrote to the Office of the President, he sent there our bankbooks and the death certificate to show that these were orphans´ accounts and that we had to be given the money. They wrote back saying that we would get nothing as the money was forfeited to the state. Simple as that. I was already at the Technical Secondary School. We were supposed to make an excursion to the Moser factory in Karlovy Vary but with the money reform each student got 1 000,- Kč and we didn´t go anywhere. And for the one thousand crowns, I bought three quarters of a kilo of sausages for the family."

"So, I had about 780,- and earned a bit more than 1500,-Kč. Of course, my colleagues the controllers had much, much more, they earned over two thousand. It was not easy for me, because I commuted all the way from Dubí. I asked the director, via my boss, his name was ing. Hubáček, if he could be so kind and increase my salary. Because I already at 4.30, I got up daily at 2.45 and when I got to bed it was 23.30. This happened after 11 years of working like this. He said he would ask the director and he did. I was given an increase of 60,- Kč. So, I went to the director and said: „Comrade director, don´t get angry, but I´m not such a poor thing that you´d have to give me 60 crowns. It´ s sad as we work much more than these men around me. I am at work before I get home 16 hours and they run for dear life already at 13.30 ready to be at home.“ „Well, it wasn´t my proposal“, he said. Well, to make matters worse, I had the forth stroke, this time on both sides."

"In 1942, the Gestapo arrived. It was about the beginning of May, they arrested my father and took him away. We had no idea where or why. They came back the next day, took away everything they found in the flat and took away my mother. So we had to be looked after by our old auntie. Mother was released after three days and they took away the auntie. My mother with us, the children, went to the Gestapo to find out about the whereabouts of my father or at least to see him. Unfortunately, none of this happened. The auntie came back in about a week and told us that she had been trying to find out if my father was there and really, one prisoner told her that he should be somewhere, in some cell or whatever it´s called but when the auntie learned about this, he was no longer there. My auntie was freed then and told us all about this. Unfortunately, we never learned more about our father, only from my mother that he was probably denounced by his best friend, because during the war, my father helped people, including some soldiers and also, as I heard, some parachutists and so on. Still more about the war. My mother never worked so now had no money and went to the Otrokovice airport where she painted aircraft. Opposite us there lived some farmers who helped us. I can´t say we were poor, we had milk, butter, cottage cheese and everything and my mother helped with them with the work in the fields in her free time."