"I found out I have a brother Antonín, who is two years younger than me. Friedel didn't want him after he was born either, as a maid she couldn't stay anywhere with s child. She wanted to give him to Hedvika, but she wouldn't take him because she was already taking care of me, Standa and Honzík. So she gave Antonín to Ludmila Razimová, who lived in Husova Street in Jihlava. She was a childless widow, so she took Antonín. I don't know if she was German, but after the war she ran away with Antonín. I searched the archives with Mr. Dvořák and we found out that they might have settled in Austria."
"At 3 a.m. on Wednesday to Thursday, my mother died. My mother had black raven hair and eyes as blue as the sky. When she died she was still warm. Her eyes were open and black. I got up to go to school, and I asked my aunt why my mother's eyes were so black? She told me that my mother had died. So I didn't go to school. My mother was on display in a coffin all day, that's how it used to be done. She wore a blue dress with a white collar and black stockings. She was lying in the coffin, she had a holy picture with her, she was holding a cross in her hands, and she had flowers around her. She was on display until four o'clock in the afternoon, and the neighbours came to bid her farewell. I wasn't crying, I felt numb. I used to go and watch my mother and then the black horses came with a glass wagon and they put the coffin in and took her away. It wasn't until I came back from the funeral that it hit me. I lay down on the ground, not crying, but screaming. I screamed like an animal! Suddenly I realized that my mother died."
"When my mother Hedvika died, it was difficult for me. I have not come to terms with it to this day. Malči was very mean, she beat me and called me names. I can't even tell you what names she used to call me. She called me a German and I wondered why. I was looking for some answers and I found a paper with my biological mother's name. It was also written there that I was seven days old when Hedvika took me in, and that she wanted to raise me a Czech woman. And that she didn't want me to know about my origins. But Malči was so mean and I found out about it. I started looking and found out my mother's name was Friedel Schöberl, and her birth date was in the papers too. It was about five years ago that I learned my father's name, he was a German soldier."
Gertruda Samuelová, née Schöberl, was born on 30 January 1942 in Jihlava. Her mother was a twenty-one-year-old worker of German nationality who renounced her child only a few days after birth. Her father, also of German nationality, showed no interest in her either. The girl was therefore taken in by a Czech woman, Hedvika Vařbuchtová, who raised her until 1948, when she succumbed to a serious illness. However, she was able to protect her for years from the threat of deportation from Czechoslovakia. After her death, Gertruda was taken in by Hedvika’s sister, who physically and verbally attacked the girl because of her German origin, which the girl had no idea about until then. Gertruda then discovered a document with information about her biological mother. As soon as she finished her compulsory schooling, she worked at the Modeta national enterprise. Later she moved to Brno, where she studied at the medical school and also got married. However, the marriage broke up soon after and she remarried in 1967. After returning to Jihlava, she worked as a worker in wooden structures, while studying economics long-distance. She worked as a payroll accountant. For sixteen years she worked for the travel agency Čedok and before retiring she worked for Czech Railways. It was not until the opening of the archives after 1989 that she learned more about her biological family. Only a few years ago, she found out about a younger brother Antonín, who had also been abandoned by their German mother. To this day, she has not been able to find her brother and is still looking for him. At the time of filming, she lived in Jihlava (July 2022).
