Františka Skoupá

* 1920

  • "We were told that we would be on the road for three days before we reached our border in Bratislava. It didn't take three days, it took six days. The locomotive took our wagon somewhere, then couldn't go any further, stopped, drove off, left us there. Then we ran out of food and drink, so we went to the countryside, to the vineyards, what was there, what nature gave. I remember when we were arriving in Budapest, it was bombed out, there were deep pits. Over the Danube, when our train was going, there were just these wooden beams built and the rails on that, and we were going step by step so slowly across the Danube, there were no bridges, nothing, it had been all blown in the air."

  • "My uncle, who I lived at, spoke perfect German because he had studied in Vienna, my aunt did too, they met in Vienna. When the Germans came, they were looking for someone who knew German. He volunteered that he could speak German, so he was their interpreter in the factory. The end of the war came, and they came for him, put him in Jagodina. When the Germans left, they blew everything up, we couldn't get to Jagodina except across the Morava River. They made a ferry across the Morava to connect Ćuprije with Jagodina. My aunt left immediately for Belgrade to a Czechoslovak military mission. My uncle was locked up and I went there to see him, about twice a week. I went to that office and begged so many times. I said: my uncle is not guilty, he was only doing interpreter, he is not guilty, they forced him to do interpreter. And so then they let him go later. Suddenly somebody rang the bell: "Fanynka, I'm here, I've already been released... everything I'm going to take off now you have to burn, it was lice and fleas he had on him."

  • "In 1939, maybe as early as the end of 1938, our people were fleeing, mostly in 1939. They were running down to Beirut. We got a dispatch from Belgrade, because Yugoslavia was not occupied until a year later. Here in the Czech Republic it was already occupied, but not yet in Yugoslavia... And our people wre fleeing through Hungary, through Yugoslavia to Belgrade. They gave us a dispatch, there was a monastery in our place and it was called Tomić, and we used to have them there. They rested for a few days, and we went to see them, and we roasted piglets with them. At that time, the Germans were not there yet. And then they took the train again, when they had rested, and they continued on to Beirut and from there they went to England, I think to France first, because nothing was occupied yet.Some of them did not stop at us, just passed through by train. We were instructed when the train from Belgrade was going to leave and we used to go mostly in the evening, and at night the trains went to Niš and Beirut. We also used to even get on the trains and bring food to our people, like my aunt baked a big meatloaf, pieces of meat or chicken or something. We would roast maybe a whole lamb, a whole piglet, and bring it to our people on the train for the journey. We just visited them on the train to give them drinks, food, everything."

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    Dalovice, Karlovy Vary, 15.01.2023

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She lived through the war in Serbia. She helped compatriots who fought against Hitler

Františka Skoupá in 1946
Františka Skoupá in 1946
photo: Witness´s archive

Františka Skoupá, neé Davidová, was born on 27 December 1920 in Kamenice nad Lipou. At the age of fifteen she went to live with her aunt and uncle in Ćuprija, Serbia. She worked in the local Czech sugar factory, was active in the local community and attended Sokol. In 1939 and 1940, she and other compatriots helped Czechoslovaks who were going across the Balkans to fight in England and France against the Nazis. She lived through the occupation and liberation of Yugoslavia during World War II, as well as the fighting among local partisans. Her uncle was briefly imprisoned after liberation because he interpreted for the Germans during the war. In 1945, all three returned to Czechoslovakia; on the way, the witness contracted typhus. She lived briefly in Kamenice nad Lipou, then went to Karlovy Vary, where she settled and started a family. Her husband had to close his plumbing company after 1948 and pay a fine to the Communists. Despite this, the Skoupý couple joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and left the party after the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968. In 2023, the witness lived in Dalovice.