Helena Šimůnková

* 1934

Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Daddy wasn´t resisting arrest

Helena Šimůnková
Helena Šimůnková
photo: Witness´s archive

Helena Šimůnková, née Jeriová, was born on 10 June 1934 in Jablonec nad Jizerou in the former Czechoslovakia. She spent her childhood in the Czechoslovak borderlands and the family remained there even after the occupation of the borderlands by Nazi Germany. Her father Josef Jerie (1900-1976) joined the anti-Nazi resistance at the beginning of World War II and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1940 and imprisoned in Pankrác, Dresden and Amberg. He was released in 1943, but banned from working. Helena Šimůnková first studied in a Czech school, but in 1941 she was transferred to a German school. She remained there until 1945. In 1949, she entered the social and medical school, later renamed the social school, from which she graduated in 1953. After graduation, she joined the kindergarten in Vilémov as a teacher and later worked as a headmistress. Her husband Jiří was a soldier in the Czechoslovak People’s Army. In 2024 Helena Šimůnková was living in Kladno.