Jiřina Srncová

“It was worse in Šluknov because there were so many new settlers there. We got there in 1948, and some of the houses had been robbed by then because certain people came there only to grab whatever property was left behind by the Germans. When we arrived, there were people from Slovakia and Bohemia already, and many Romany people from Slovakia. It was this mixture of nationalities. When I went to work, I made some German friends. Not all Germans were forced to leave. Those who had been loyal to Czechs could stay. I think a third of German people stayed in Šluknov, and I went to school and then to work with them. We got along very nicely.”

“I went to work at 14 years of age. There were about five textile plants in Šluknov back then; there was at least one such factory in each of the other communities in the area. I think nowadays there are none left. I went to Vilémov near Šluknov. I was 14 years old. I guess it was legal back then to employ me at such a young age. About a month later, I started working at a weaving machine. That’s the way it was; such were the times.”

“I remember the currency reform of 1953. We had no cash to exchange. So, neighbours would come to us and ask us to exchange some cash for them in our name. You could exchange money only up to a certain amount per person. They didn’t approach us with the intention to give us money that they could not exchange for themselves. And then, cash was scattered all over the place because there was nothing to exchange it for anymore and the old currency was gone.”

“But then 1948 came, and they built the restricted zone there [in the borderland] so entire villages were forced to relocate inland. A truck arrived and my parents loaded whatever they could in it. We were moving all the way to Šluknov to resettle the borderland, the former Sudetenland. I don’t know if my parents ever received any recompense for the move. What I remember is going to Šluknov in the truck. They allocated a former German house to us. I went to school in Šluknov. The town is on the German border – we moved from one borderland to another, all the way up north.”

“My keenest memories are of living on the Austrian Border. We even had a field in Austria close to Nová Bystřice. I also remember Americans liberating us. We waved at them yet we were also scared because it was the first time we saw blacks among them. That was in 1945. I was only three years old but I do remember. My childhood was so-so; there were many of us children, so we weren’t rich. My parents had a small farmstead and a cow. I think we used to go to work the field in Austria.”