"My mother took a little suitcase like this for herself, not very big, and crammed what she could into it. And I had a toy suitcase, a toy like that, for kids. I said, 'Mommy, can I have this suitcase?' 'Oh, yeah.' So, I didn't put much in there. The important things my mother had to put in the suitcase, and we went to the station. Everything stayed there, but then it was possible to go back there. It wasn't such a big German horror. After a while, my mother was told to go there, to bring the furniture and what she could, the equipment, by freight train. And although she was not really independent, she avoided such big tasks, but my father was in uniform, or he just told her to do it. So she managed it quite well. She left the bigger ones there, the biggest pieces of furniture, and the smaller ones, the usable ones, she just dragged them to the station somehow and got back on the train."
"And he was also very loyal, especially towards Masaryk. He appreciated him very much, and I did so after him. I got to know him slowly, from the age of four. There were some brochures with Mr. President. I respected Mr. President very much, and my favorite was when he was dressed in military clothes and riding a horse. Those were my favorite images of Mr. President, and the military cap, kind of the typical military cap, here with the badge and kind of more of a polo uniform, riding pants, with the appropriate jacket, so maybe I have that somewhere in that album. So, Mr. President, I liked him a lot."
"But please, in Austria, we were so... My parents were out of it, I was out of it too. Just as we were about to transfer again, there was really some sort of, I guess, SS or something celebration at that station. It was an orchestra that was full of Germans. Occupiers. And they were sort of joyfully fiddling around, and they were just rejoicing about how they had already occupied the Czech borderlands, or that they were going to occupy the Czech borderlands. So they were celebrating there, they were just, they were on top. So those impressions were of all kinds from that trip."
Zdeňka Skoumalová, née Rejhonová, was born on 8 February 1932 in Velykyj Byčkiv in Carpathian Ruthenia. Her father, Jan Rejhon, was a legionnaire and raised his children in great respect for the legacy of T. G. Masaryk. Zdeňka was only a few months into first grade when she had to leave her home. March 1939 came, and the Hungarian troops occupied Subcarpathian Rus. It was impossible to return via Slovakia, so the witness and her mother, Maria Rejhonová, made the complicated journey through Romania, Yugoslavia, and Austria to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Her father did not take part in the move because he had enlisted as part of the mobilization. Later, the family settled in Kobylisy, Prague, where Zdeňka began her student years - first at the Libeň Grammar School and then at the former Faculty of Philology of Charles University. She studied Russian and Czech under Professor Bohuslav Havránek, a leading Czech linguist. As the daughter of a legionnaire, she had a hard time, and only her excellent grades saved her in the all-faculty examinations in the 1950s. Her academic career led her through several professional departments. For most of her life, she worked at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Although she was pressured to join the Communist Party as a Russian studies scholar, she never did. PhDr. Zdeňka Skoumalová, DrCs., died on 20 November 2020.
Velykyj Byčkiv, summer 1937. On the left, the father with the witness, on the right Švamberk, the owner of the house, with his son Ferk. Mom is looking out the window
Velykyj Byčkiv, summer 1937. On the left, the father with the witness, on the right Švamberk, the owner of the house, with his son Ferk. Mom is looking out the window
