I just go out and nobody stops me at the border
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Eržika Sojková, born Jarošová, was born on February 16, 1949 in the now defunct settlement of Svatý Prokop near Lipno nad Vltavou. Her parents came to Czechoslovakia as Slovak re-emigrants from the Romanian village of Bodonoš in 1947. Her father worked on the construction of the Lipno dam, and the family eventually settled in the village of Slupečná, originally inhabited by Germans. In 1967, Eržika Sojková graduated from secondary school in Kaplice. In the same year, her older sister Hana left and went after her partner in Austria, whom Eržika visited in the summer of the following year. Austria thus experienced the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops. However, she returned to Czechoslovakia due to concerns about her parents. Shortly thereafter, she met her future husband. In the 1970s, Slupečná housed vacationers from the German Democratic Republic (GDR), in the 1990s she started a business in tourism, and briefly worked in Austria. For her, the fall of communism meant, on the one hand, the desired freedom of movement, and on the other hand, economic uncertainty due to the destruction of state estates and local factories. In 2021, Eržika Sojková lived in Slupečná.
