Hard years
Download image
Vlasta Prokopová was born on November 7, 1928 in Holýšov under the girl name Štáhlová into a family of glass workers and a servant as their only child. She grew up in very poor circumstances in the aftermath of the economic crisis. In the autumn of 1934 she entered the first class of the Masaryk School in Holýšov. On 1 April 1937 her father died. After the occupation of Holýšov by the Wehrmacht on October 10, 1938, she left to live with her grandmother in Chalupy. She continued her schooling at the elementary school in Zemětice. In February 1939 her mother rented a small room in Zastávka u Přeštic. She finished her last year of elementary school in Dnešice. She started attending the secondary school on 1 September, 1939 in Přeštice. At the beginning of 1942, after the death of her second grandmother, she moved with her mother to an apartment in Krchleby. She graduated from the secondary school in Staňkov. She continued her education at the Business Academy in Pilsen. She experienced the first air raids on the city and participated in the remediation work. She finished school in June 1944. In the summer of the same year she joined Wehrertüchtigungslager WEL III - Strašice (Straschnitz) as an interpreter and administrative assistant. She worked in a training camp Hitler Youth (Hitler Youth) from Saxony. Here she met her lifelong girlfriend Elfried, who protected her all life long. She contributed to the operation of the camp. On phone she spoke with K.H. Frank and was present at Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsch’s visit. In March 1945 she moved with the whole camp to Mýto near Rokycany. On April 27, she went back home with fake documents to Krchleby. On May 4, she welcomed the first American tanks on the square in Stankov. After the liberation in Krchleby she witnessed raging mob and lynching of the German citizens. The witness did not wish to talk about her post-war fate. At the time of filming she lived a happy life in Holýšov.
