"Everyone was soapy, thankful. I still remember them killing an old woman’s pig. So they killed him and piled a pile of straw in the yard, and they threw the pig on the straw, set it on fire, and just burned the pig on the straw. Then my mother brought the meat and I didn't want to eat it because it smelled of smoke. They had such a farewell. I remember the blue car standing at the gate. A small truck. And they were sitting there on planks, on that truck. It was painted blue. And we all cried. Everyone, literally. We said goodbye. "
"I got fourth grade and led the pioneers for the entire school. For me, a rookie, it was a shock. Because in a village like Dolní Bojanovice, where we greeted each other, ‘Jesus Christ be praised!’ “And in greeting,“ Hello! ”No one answered, so it was tough. To unite the curriculum and lead the Pioneer organization and prosper in communist education. Because there were, of course, party members at the National Committee at the time, it was quite difficult. "
"We as teachers had to instill politics in people. No one listened to it anyway , but we had to go there, we had to prepare programs for the elections, mandatorily take part in meetings, mandatorily participate in public exercises. Mandatory. It was mandatory to go work part-time jobs. As teachers."
Jindřiška Švajdová, née Králíková, was born on December 17, 1939 in Lusice near Hodonín into a Catholic-oriented family. Her first memories date back to the end of World War II. Her parents and grandparents housed soldiers of the liberation army. The soldiers came in a rather poor state. After the advent of communism in 1948, Jindřiška’s family moved to Gottwaldov (today’s Zlín) for work. The Kraliks immediately came into the crosshairs of the local Communists because they attended church services. Despite the apparent religious beliefs of her parents, Jindřiška was admitted to the Secondary Pedagogical School in Kromeriz in 1954. The students of the Secondary Pedagogical School were under particularly strict ideological supervision, as they were to raise new citizens of the socialist state. In order to graduate, the believing girl had to sign a declaration that she was renouncing her faith in God. But she never really gave up on faith during her whole life, she experienced it only privately. During her life as a teacher, she was met with many of the absurdities of the regime. She had to deal with the fact that, as a teacher in a strongly Catholic village, she had a duty to persuade the parents of the entrusted children not to send them to religious classes and not to go to church. During the 1960s, her superiors ordered her to join the Communist Party, she always refused to do so. She and her husband Zdeněk Švajda raised their son Petr and in 2021 they lived in Březnice in Wallachia.
The baptism of Petr, the witness's son in April 1963 - although she had to formally renounce her faith as a teacher under the communist regime, she never actually gave it up
The baptism of Petr, the witness's son in April 1963 - although she had to formally renounce her faith as a teacher under the communist regime, she never actually gave it up
From left: aunt of the witness Věra Králíková, captain of Soviet soldiers Bilyukov, father Jaromír Králík, mother Františka Králíková, below grandmother Věra Nováková, Jindřiška Švajdová (photographed at Věra Nováková's yard, barn in the background)
From left: aunt of the witness Věra Králíková, captain of Soviet soldiers Bilyukov, father Jaromír Králík, mother Františka Králíková, below grandmother Věra Nováková, Jindřiška Švajdová (photographed at Věra Nováková's yard, barn in the background)
