Blanka Slunečková

* 1944

  • "If you see Benda in Prague, for example, he was the son of a dissident, and he studied law, and there were others like him, but we had absolutely no chance. Then, when I got married, we were living in Nový Mlýn, we had one room there. And about a fortnight later, there is the photo you want to put there, they called me to the SNB in Votice to come there. And I went there and was told that I had to start work immediately, at the State Farm, that I was included in the plan, and that if I didn't start work, there would be consequences, that I was endangering the plan. And that I mustn't tell anyone. You know, I come home, eyes up, and I tell my dad, and he says, 'You're not going to join in.' Because they needed me to be out there as a married woman, and they'd probably have leverage over me. But this way, I was a housewife, so they couldn't, so I truly didn't join in the end..."

  • "On the day we were supposed to move, my brother got tonsilitis and had a high fever, so my mother asked them if we could postpone it for a few days. It wasn't possible. So she said she put some blankets in a wagon, and she wrapped my brother in that, and I just have this memory of it, quite an intense one, that we were standing in that room with my grandfather, and they were holding each other around the shoulders and crying. It was very strange to me, why were they crying, we were going to my grandmother's and uncle's and aunt's, I was looking forward to it, of course..."

  • "It was agreed that it would all be handed over, everything was written down, the living and dead inventory was handed over and valued, that they would reimburse us and that they would let my parents live there and that my dad and mom would work there as employees of the state farm and that my grandfather would have one room there for the rest of life. And it wasn't even a quarter of a year before they came, and not only did they not pay us anything, but they said we had to move out."

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    České Budějovice, 15.05.2023

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I was walking in the fields, that’s all they would let me do

Blanka Slunečková in 1963
Blanka Slunečková in 1963
photo: Witness archive

Blanka Slunečková was born on 5 August 1944 in Dědkov, on the farm that her grandfather had acquired in the land reform in 1921. In 1950, however, the family lost the farm during nationalisation. Despite initial promises, they had to move out with only a few pieces of furniture and lived with various relatives in substandard conditions. Blanka Slunečková, as the daughter of a kulak, was not able to study at the school of her choice, and only later did she manage to study night classes at an economics school, which also gave her a better job - in an office. Until then, she had worked in agriculture, glassworks or a mercury laboratory. After the revolution, she and other partners built a successful freight forwarding company, which they sold in 2020. In 2023, Blanka Slunečková was living in Votice.