Helena Strublová

* 1932

  • "She said that when the first speech was finished at Albertov, they thought it would be over and they would sing anthems, but another member made the second speech (she didn't know which faculty he came from) and it was something completely different. [The atmosphere] stirred up. They didn´t get to the bus stop from Albertov.They couldn´t leave and they had to go to Národní třída. She said they had been forced, they didn´t not go voluntarily, that the cordon had swept them along. And then the massacre took place on Národní třída. She came home with a bump on her head and a broken finger."

  • "The opening scene for the beginning of the festival had been completely different from the one that really opened the festival later. Originally there had been initials T. G. M. [T.G. Masaryk] and E. B. [Edvard Beneš]. It had already been fully rehearsed, but a ban came - apparently someone saw it and it wasn´t approved and it was not allowed to be carried out. Another scene had to be rehearsed. Then they woke us up at night. The soldiers took us to Strahov and we were rehearsing the new opening of the festival at night in the year 1948."

  • "I came home and said, 'Mom, why is it so messy here?' So she told me, and then we were advised that if some stranger was in our apartment, we shouldn't even go home. The second time they were looking for Dad, my sister and I didn't even go home. As we saw a car in front of the house, we knew what was happening and we didn't go home because my mother didn't want us to be there."

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    Olomouc, 26.09.2018

    (audio)
    duration: 02:27:01
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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Mom used to say I was a Sokol festival baby

Helena Strublová aged 14
Helena Strublová aged 14
photo: witness´s archive

Helena Strublová, née Kršková, was born on July 26, 1932 in Moravská Huzová, where she spent the first years of her life. Due to her father’s job as a railway worker, they often moved. They experienced the occupation of borderlands in the autumn of 1938 in Dolní Lipová near Jeseník. Then they lived briefly in Holice near Olomouc and spent the end of the war again in Moravská Huzová. Father was involved in handing weapons over to partisans. The Gestapo searched their house several times, and father had to hide for some time. After the war, the family settled in Šternberk and became involved in Sokol life. The witness took part in the 11th Sokol festival in June 1948. In 1951, Helena graduated from secondary school and turned down a medical faculty placement. She decided to take up a teachers training course and started to work at primary school. After finishing a short-term distance study, she graduated from the Faculty of Education of the University of Olomouc in the field of physical education and then she taught at several village schools in the surroundings of Olomouc. She got married in 1956 and asked to be transferred to Šternberk. After the ban of Sokol, she actively participated in activities of the local physical education organization and rehearsed programs for Spartakiads with primary school pupils. She taught until her retirement in 1987, and after 1989 she contributed to the restoration of the Šternberk Sokol, where she is still active today.