Jitka Rousová

* 1940

  • “My grandmother used to prepare food for a whole bunch of apprentice cooks. Before the bakery had been nationalised. I winessed my grandfather handing over our bakery to them as it was nationalised. My grandfather told them: 'What if I wouldn't hand it over?' And they [the Communists] answered: 'Well, we wouldn't give you flour so you wouldn't be able to bake anything.'”

  • “There was my father's sister at home, there were my father's parents, my mother. All dark and quiet. We were just sitting there unable to do a thing. As the Germans declared martial law, there was no electricity, they just paralised the whole town. And suddenly, being just a child, I realised that my father would never bring me a book again, that he would never tell me anything. So there was this huge emotional scar. And for my whole life I haven´t gotten rid of fear. Even as my son did his military service, I worried for him so much. So we would pack and go visit him. We would set up a tent in the forest next to the barracks, we would bring him to us, he would put on his civilian clothes and spend the whole day with us. I would bring him food I would cook and in the evening we would drive him back again. I was indeed so afraid for him, as it really wasn't easy back then.”

  • “Stanislav Motl, a journalist, just wrote that one [former Hitlerjugend member who probably shot witnesses' father in 1945] was so sorry for what he had done. And Mr Motl asked me if I would tell this man something in case I would meet him and I told him that I wouldn't. As I am not the one to pass judgments. I would even shake his hand, knowing that he regrets what he had done. But I wouldn't bring more evil into this world, never. As there is more than enough evil already. So I wouldn't be the one to judge them. As in the end maybe they would be judged by destiny. As they would be dying. I saw people dying in great pain. So then they will pay for what they had done.”

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    Velké Meziříčí, 02.08.2019

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    duration: 02:57:00
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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I realized that my father would never read a bed-time story to me ever again

A portrait
A portrait
photo: archiv pamětníka

Jitka Rousová was born on September 12th 1940 in Velké Meziříčí. Her father, Vladimír Neuman, an architect, had been supporting local resistance and partisans at his family’s bakery during the WW2 . He was also one of the founders of the Horácké Theatre. During the national uprising of May 1945, insurgents took over Velké Meziříčí and at the town hall a new committee had been established with Jitka’s father as its member. There was a turn of events on May 6th 1945. The town hall had been occupied by Wehrmacht soldiers retreating from the Soviet Army. After that, German soldiers executed all the committee members and had thrown them into a river. More people were killed during the air raids done by the liberating armies. So at the end of the war, a hundred of innocent people ended up in the Velké Meziříčí’s cemetery. Vladimír Neuman given an award for his bravery and participation in the anti-Nazi resistance, however, his surviving family lived in poverty. After 1948, Neuman family’s bakery had been nationalised and witnesses’ mother’s widow’s pension had been taken away from her as she tried to make some money to support her children. Jitka studied to become a dental laboratory technician, later she had been working as a pediatric nurse. She was traumatised for her whole life by the loss of her father at an early age.