“There is a magazine from Prague. My eldest sister, Mařenka, she was in Germany doing forced labour, and she was subscribing to a magazine from Prague called Journal for Ladies and Girls and to the magazine Hvězda. I read serialized novels in these magazines. Secretly, so that mom would not know. Well, the Journal for Ladies and Girls presented a stewardess, an air hostess, and oh, how much I wanted to become one. And so I looked forward to our moving to Bohemia, but that was already too late. I was sixteen. Well, when we arrived, a family school was established here in Žatec for girls from families who re-emigrated back to Czechoslovakia. It was a there-year home economics school, but we had to manage everything within one-year. We attended school on Saturdays, too. We cooked everyday, sew men’s shirts, underwear and everything…”
“…Dad was able to repair everything, and so they did everything in the field for us in exchange. (…) How about the re-emigration? We looked forward to it so much, so intensely, because every family had some family members here. We had a brother here. A notice arrived. Those who had some family members here knew that they would go to Czechoslovakia. We travelled in one train carriage; it was a cattle car, and there were four families. Our family, Královský, Horník, Veselý, and each family had a quarter of the train carriage and the journey took two weeks. We brought our cow and mom would go to milk her. Some people carried their horses, but they were transported separately. We had an old cow, but it was not giving any milk… We went via Mukachevo, Chop; Chop was in front of the border, it was still on the Russian side. One of the trains that carried us went all the way to Hranice na Moravě. Dad sent a telegram from Hranice to Pepa in Tvršice: We have already crossed the border, we are already here. Brother thus already knew about us. We arrived to Dolní Jiřetín at four o’clock in the morning…”
“Russians took over Ukraine and Volhynia, and then came the Germans, They were... well, how to put it, well, it was a tense time for us. My brother was a member of the organization Blaník. We knew about it; I knew it from my brother. They were meeting in the house of old Mr. Libovický. He was a beekeeper and his granddaughter was my school-mate. We knew about it, but in secret. Young men are meeting in my grandpa’s house. (And this Mr. Ficek was not a member of Blaník?) No, but when the Russians came, when Russians occupied us, he was transferred to a Ukrainian village and he had to start learning Ukrainian. It was in 1941 or 1942 when Russians occupied Volhynia. Later Germans passed through the region and they got all the way to Moscow and the Russians then chased them back again and we witnessed all this. Well, and at the time when the Russians came there, our mill burnt down. The whole village used kerosene lamps, but we had electricity, light bulbs, and chandeliers, with a kind of curly embellishments. My mom would go to the mill in the morning, and it burnt down at night between Saturday and Sunday.”
Vlastimila Plocová, née Holcová, was born in 1930 in Volhynia in the present-day Ukraine in the village Závidov. The family later moved to České Noviny where she lived until she was sixteen. Vlastimila spent the entire period of WWII there, during which Volhynia was administered by the Soviets and then by Germany. She also experienced the presence of the UPA units, also called Bandera’s units. In 1947 the whole family, together with others, re-emigrated to Czechoslovakia, where they settled in Tvršice near Žatec. Her brother Josef Holec took part in combat at Dukla, where he was wounded. He was later arrested in Czechoslovakia under the Communist regime and imprisoned for his resistance activity in the group Judex. Vlastimila married Miroslav Ploc and together they raised their children. Volhynian Czechs still maintain contacts among themselves and they preserve their shared heritage.
