"I woke up in the night and it was light. From the window I saw that the barn was on fire. I woke up my husband and we woke up Matějka. We waited to see what would happen. There was an investigation, the cops were going around, but people voted that Matějka and my husband couldn't have done it, that it was folded hay that hadn't dried enough and it caught fire." - "And your husband was afraid? Why was he afraid?" - "They could have done it beautifully, that it was sabotage, that they set it on fire on purpose." - "That they would use it against them? Falsely accuse them?" - "Yes, they could have done that. It was a small thing to do that. They were afraid of it, Matějka and my husband. We sat up all night waiting to see what would happen, what people would decide."
"When we moved back to Lažany, the local people were stressed. They didn't know if they could talk to us because we were always being watched. And so many times we didn't even like to go out because we were almost afraid [to meet someone], people didn't know if they could say hello to us. It wasn't nice here. In the end, we were better received in Vlkov than back in Lažany. In Vlkov, when we went to work, one lady said: 'They kept shouting that the kulaks were coming, and they were the children!'"
"So my grandfather, when we got to Vlkov, was driving a tractor near Černá Hora. And some guy always came out of Černá Hora and invited him to Litomyšl for questioning. Maybe for the whole afternoon. He had to turn off the tractor and go with him for questioning. And my grandfather said the worst thing was when they sat him down so he could see the clock. The clock was ticking and they kept interrogating him. They were just telling him that he thought he could get away with marrying a poor girl. I didn't know much about it, he always came in all devastated, but he didn't want to talk about it much."
Jaroslava Tobková was born on April 15, 1929 in the village of Olšany to Mr. and Mrs. Košnar. Two years later her sister Růžena was born. She did not study because she was to take over the farm. In 1947, however, she met Josef Tobek from the neighbouring village of Lažany. After eight years of acquaintance they got married and became the tenth generation on the Tobek farm. Their farm was one of the largest in the area, owning 40 hectares of fields. In 1956, most of their property was expropriated and the whole family was moved to the village of Vlkov, Jaroslava Tobková was five months pregnant at the time. Two daughters, Jaroslava and Jitka, were born in Vlkov during the four-year displacement. In the spring of 1960, they were able to return to Lažany, but not to Josef Tobek’s family farm, but to a house for grooms that stood in its neighbourhood. For thirty years they watched from their windows as their farm was devastated. The family was always under surveillance by State Security. The elder daughter had great difficulty getting into high school due to her poor grades. The witness worked in a brickyard, later in a laundry and in the janitor’s office of the Litomyšl hospital. In 1991 they got most of their property back in restitution. The family farm in Lažany No. 14, which the Tobeks had farmed for more than 300 years, could not be saved. Today another house stands on its foundations. Jaroslava Tobková was widowed in 2017 and lived in Lažany in 2023. She died on March 1st, 2025.
