Věra Pospíšilová

* 1935

  • "The sixty-eighth we perceived... we were terribly happy, but when it went wrong, I remember my husband, he fainted. We took him to the hospital. Musicians, they're so sensitive. Of course, he was fine and the doctors said, 'Close your radio.' Because it was awful. And then we went to Switzerland in '96. We could still do that. And when we left on the 7th of October, that was my oldest daughter's birthday, that's why I remember it, they closed the border the next day. By then we wouldn't have been allowed to see him, he was already there. My husband was already there."

  • "They came to me saying they needed a typist fast at the Department of the Interior. That they needed some help. So I had to, I had to listen. So I went to Old Town Square to the Ministry, even though I didn't want to, and I wrote the Hot Kitchen Standards. Maybe it still exists somewhere. When I wrote Standards of Warm Cuisine, I went back to the Advertisement Shop, but they said, 'Comrade, they have asked you to join them.' I said, 'But I don't want to.' 'But, comrade, you have to, because we will get subsidies for you.' But I don't know, I don't think it was called subsidies then. But they got some money, so they sold me to the ministry. And when I was being recruited for the ministry, I came there on the first day and I was introduced and sat down in the corridor. And the chairman of the Communist Party from the ministry came and said, 'Did you have a miller father?' I said, 'Yes.' 'And how many tables did your mill have?' I said, 'You know, I don't even know.' So we looked for my father on the phone almost all over the country to ask, I mean, he asked how many stools the mill had. I prayed that he had a lot so they wouldn't want me. Yeah, he only had two! 'Well, you can go.' And that's how I was able to get into the ministry."

  • "I haven't tried anything, nothing terrible. It was only when the liberation came in April 1945 that all the women had to be walled up in cellars somewhere, because Malinovsky's liberating army came, and that was a disaster in short. There were a few children left behind. We had to stay in the cellar, they ransacked our flat, the whole mill. They ate toothpaste, they were like that... Now my favourite book Kája Marík, they used that one for the toilet, because it was paperback. Well, it was a disaster, you could hardly go there anymore... Well, we continued to live there, but it was horrible."

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    Praha, 02.11.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 01:03:33
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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We came back from Switzerland even though we didn’t have to

Věra Pospíšilová
Věra Pospíšilová
photo: archive of a witness

Věra Pospíšilová, née Štrofová, was born on 21 September 1935 in Brno, but her parents lived in nearby Klobouky. Vladimír Štrof owned a steam mill there, which he founded together with his father Jakub Štrof. During the war, the Štrof family’s farm did not fare badly and they were even able to help others. However, the family tragedy did not pass them by. In 1941, Věřa’s uncle Jaroslav Trumpeš was arrested as a member of the Moravian Five, the top organ of the domestic resistance, and executed three years later. His wife, Růžena, was left to suffer and died, and so the Štrofs took care of their orphaned cousin Jiřík. When April 1945 came, Marshal Malinovsky’s troops swept through South Moravia, leaving havoc in their wake. Vera’s family, together with other neighbours, hid in the wine cellar and after a fortnight found the mill completely looted. Even the fleeing Germans did not do as much damage as the Soviet liberation army. Vladimír Štrof took out a loan and reconstructed the mill, but soon another blow came. In the early 1950s, the communists expropriated the mill and the Štrofs had to move into an annex. From there, they watched with pain in their hearts as the national administrator ruined the mill. Věra was not allowed to go to any school because of her poor grades, but eventually she managed to graduate from the business academy. She went to Prague and later married the musician Ladislav Pospíšil. When her husband got an engagement with the Basel Chamber Orchestra in 1969, she and her children lived in Switzerland for two years. In 1971, the Pospíšil family had to make a difficult decision whether or not to return to Czechoslovakia. In the end, they decided to return. Věra Pospíšilová worked as a stenographer successively in Advertising Trade, at the Ministry of Internal Trade and in People’s Democracy. In 2023 she lived with her husband in Prague and had seven grandchildren.