It’s important to always get up and carry on
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Věra Valentová, née Pořízková, was born on 30 July 1929 in the village of Poštorná near Břeclav. Whe she was fourteen, Věra looked after the children of a Czech family that declared itself German in 1939, at the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Věra’s father was assigned to forced labour and became a part of the Todt Organisation, which built a network of railway lines stretching deep into the territory of the Soviet Union. Her father’s diary tells of the terrible conditions there. Věra’s two sisters were also assigned to forced labour during World War II. One of them worked at a bomb and ammunition factory near Vienna. When she deliberately refused to return from a holiday leave, she was arrested by the Gestapo and threatened with work in the roughest shifts of the factory, where people regularly died. With the arrival of the Nazis, Poštorná became a part of the German Reich. The family could only enter the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia with a permit. They lived near Boří (Pine) Forest. During World War II, a concentration camp was located nearby, adjoined by the Muna Ammunition Factory. The workers were both forced labourers and POWs from Belgium, France, and Serbia. Poštorná was severly damaged by bombing at the end of the war. In the 1970s Věra and her husband found themselves under the scrutiny of State Security. Her husband’s brother had emigrated, and his relatives were thus placed under pressure from the Communist regime. As of 2017 the witness lives in Brno. She has a daughter and a grandson.
