Marie Sýkorová

* 1937

  • "We had a twenty-three years of marriage, a short but real one. We managed to support each other in difficult times. We had someone to hold on to. We could carry it all together. The worst phase was messing with our children. Because you could carry your own insults, but when someone begins to mess with your children, that´s just too much."

  • „He was a man, who did not stand with his feet firmly on the ground; his head was in the sky. He had many strange friends. Maybe there were also some others, but many theatre people would wind him up. He meant well. He had that poetic enthusiasm I´d say, and believed that it could be the way he thought, but in that kind of a jungle a man needs to be tough to keep going. For if you got a position and power, you immediately get friend. And when it comes to it, they turn around. Only very few stick around.“

  • „I went to work on Saturday and did my job, at midday the director and the head of the company committee showed up. I just stared. Well come on. The director looked around everything and had nothing to comment on, and the head of the committee was just looking into the window. The director told me: ‚So I heard you are getting married.‘ ‚Well that´s no big deal, is it?,‘ I replied. And then it all started. What am I thinking to marry an enemy of the working class and I would be fired in two weeks for such speak. And such outrage. I just stared at him as I was not expecting it. Then he asked if I had to get married. That he should not have said. I jumped to him and grabbed him by the star he had on the lapel and said: ‚Well you don’t know me very well then, all the time I´ve worked here.‘ And he said that there also exist measures to help me, and I could stay in their service still. I kept shaking him and said that even if that was the case, I´d never bother to act that way to remain in their service. I am not licking any honey here, I said. Look into your own rows to see, how many rogues, thieves and parasites, and you don’t see them. And you´re taking revenge on me? And why? I´ve done no wrong.“

  • „I went to work on Saturday and did my job, at midday the director and the head of the company committee showed up. I just stared. Well come on. The director looked around everything and had nothing to comment on, and the head of the committee was just looking into the window. The director told me: ‚So I heard you are getting married.‘ ‚Well that´s no big deal, is it?,‘ I replied. And then it all started. What am I thinking to marry an enemy of the working class and I would be fired in two weeks for such speak. And such outrage. I just stared at him as I was not expecting it. Then he asked if I had to get married. That he should not have said. I jumped to him and grabbed him by the star he had on the lapel and said: ‚Well you don’t know me very well then, all the time I´ve worked here.‘ And he said that there also exist measures to help me, and I could stay in their service still. I kept shaking him and said that even if that was the case, I´d never bother to act that way to remain in their service. I am not licking any honey here, I said. Look into your own rows to see, how many rogues, thieves and parasites wearing stars, and you don’t see them. And you´re taking revenge on me? And why? I´ve done no wrong.“

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    Paskov, 21.01.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 03:00:25
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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I don’t understand, why our children had to suffer for us too

Marie Sýkorová at her wedding
Marie Sýkorová at her wedding
photo: archiv pamětnice

Marie Sýkorová, née Bohačíková, was born on 8 April, 1937 in a poor family with three siblings. In her childhood she witnessed several drastic events related to the end of WW2 in Paskov. A calm life of a clerk in a savings bank in Frýdek-Místek changed, when she met Zdeněk Sýkora. In 1960 he returned from prison after amnesty. He was sentenced in 1950 in Ostrava in political process known as Buchal a spol. His father, Rudolf, got twenty-five years of prison and his brother Miroslav was executed in 1951. The communists also took away a prospering soda business from the family. Although she was put off by her surroundings from marrying a political prisoner, she finally married him. Then they had to face many insults and their children had problems getting to school studies. Her husband died in 1983. Marie Sýkorová gained the family soda company back in restitutions.