Olga Tichá

„Rok předtím bylo strašné sucho, to léto bylo tak strašně suché, že nebyla vůbec žádná úroda. Nebylo čím krmit dobytek, takže ho museli pozabíjet. Přišla zima, kdy hrozil hladomor, republika nakoupila potraviny v zahraničí, ale vydala se hrozně z peněz, už nebyly žádné peníze, tak se rozhodli to řešit tím, že vypsali tzv. milionářskou daň. To znamená, že každý, kdo měl majetek víc než milion, tak byl povinen zaplatit tu daň, podle velikosti majetku. A ta byla splatná v roce 1948 v červnu. Můj otec na to měl daňovou rezervu připravenou v bance, ale to mu sebrali už v únoru. Takže on neměl tu daň čím splatit. Dluhy zůstávaly. Soudruzi komunisti vzali jenom majetek, co mělo hodnotu, ale dluhy nechali. Takže někteří lidé na tom strašně tratili. To, že jsme nemohli zaplatit tu milionářskou daň, se táhlo s tatínkem až do mé dospělosti, že mu strhávali třetinu z platu, aby se to nějak uhradilo...“

„Úderem jedné hodiny jednoho dne se všechno změnilo, byl to 25. únor v roce 1948. Ten den komunistická vláda vyhlásila den znárodnění a už druhý den ráno tatínek musel odevzdat klíče a už nám nic nepatřilo. Sebrali nám i doklady, hotovost, cennosti, přišli nám – říkalo se tomu rabování – taková hlídka, v té hlídce estébáci, velice ozbrojení lidé, a všechno prohlíželi, vyházeli, z nábytku věci, hledali cennosti, a když našli, tak sebrali. Bylo to hrozně nepříjemný, zvlášť pro maminku, která to nesla na svých bedrech. My jsme měli velkou domácnost, tam se nestravovala jen rodina, ale i někteří zaměstnanci, co už mohli být v důchodu, ale nebrali důchod, protože si ho tenkrát neplatili, to nebylo tenkrát povinný, tak byli bez příjmů, a nikoho doma neměli, kdo se jim staral o domácnost, tak se u nás stravovali...“

“Mom thus did various illegal odd jobs to make ends meet and it was all very difficult for her. Now, when I reflect on it, I don’t understand how she was able to survive it. She had to cope with so much injustice. Even before the nationalization when we had the factory here, everyone here greeted us with respect. Even me, a three-year-old girl. After nationalization of the factory, people were hiding behind their gates. They did not dare not to greet us, they were ashamed. And they were afraid to greet us. And my mom had to live in this. Dad was going to work and he had his friends and acquaintances there but my mom did not. She lost all friends, and all people feared her. She did not have anything. She was very lonely and in a very difficult situation. There were people who were helping her, but they mostly did it in secret.”

“Originally we were to be evicted to the forests in the Kokořín region, to a gamekeeper’s lodge in a remote place. My mom went to see it there, because she had been informed where they wanted to evict us. The way it was done was that a truck or a wagon arrived and they loaded whatever the people quickly managed to pack and whatever just fitted in there. Then they carried them somewhere but the people did not have a clue where they were driving them. People who were inconvenient to the regime and who were called ‘enemies of the people’ were being moved in this way. Mom thus found out that they wanted to relocate us to that gamekeeper’s lodge and she found out that from there it was two kilometres uphill to reach the nearest village which had drinkable water and electricity. There was a well by the gamekeeper’s lodge, but they had thrown in Germans there during the war and the water was not drinkable. There was nothing there, only a deserted old gamekeeper’s lodge. We would have to walk two kilometres to a bus stop in order to get to school. Grandma was old and dad had to go to work. Mom was afraid of this a lot.”

“Gift-giving for children used to be done in the factory on St. Nicholas day. Children of employees and children from the street gathered there, they recited some poems and sang songs, and then they received some presents – bags with fruits and sweets. This continued even after the factory became nationalized, and so I came there as well and I sang the folk song Okolo Suče voděnka teče (Water Flows Around Suč). And they kicked me out! And it had an unpleasant consequence: the production manager, a great communist, declared that they should have done away with us just like they had done in Russia. That they should have made us stand against the wall and shoot us. I was about four years old. I was sitting on the staircase there and crying and I was afraid to go home, because I still felt that I was to blame for everything. That if I said about this at home, I would get a beating, because I was the one who caused it that they wanted to make us stand against the wall. It was perhaps because I had sung that song, or I didn’t know why. I did not explain this to myself in any way, I just felt that everything was my fault. This feeling accompanied me throughout my entire childhood – that I was to blame for what the family was going through.”