"Mrs Šamánková had a son, Karel, who was totally deployed to Germany. Karel was killed during one air raid there. And she got the news that he was dead. Mrs. Šamánkova used to come up from below and say the worst insults [at the Germans]. But we children were not allowed to hear it. Our mothers hid us: 'You heard nothing, nothing!' Nobody said anything. But someone was found, not from our street, certainly not. They [the Germans] asked around, but nobody knew anything: 'No, we don't know.' We were so instructed by our parents: 'You didn't see anything, you didn't hear anything.' So the cohesion here was amazing, that really people stuck together in the worst time."
"In our street, in our house, there was a Jewish woman who lived upstairs. I have a sad memory of her, when the Gestapo came and loaded the old lady onto a truck, holding a cat in her arms. She said to me, 'Jaruška, please take the cat and look after it until I come back.' The lady never came back from the concentration camp. I was afraid how I would tell her when she found out that my cat was lost, but it turned out differently - sadly."
"I have this memory: my mother was sewing for someone from the village and the lady paid her with a cup of lard. My mother cut me a slice of bread, spread it with lard, and I ran out. We were there with my friends, who immediately said, 'Oh, what have you got?' So the slice went from the first to the last. And when I came to my mother, I begged her, 'Mummy, please, can you cut me another slice of bread?' She said, 'Have you eaten it yet?' So the street was full of kids getting along, we were great friends, we played games and shared everything, even the little we had. I may have been an only child, but I wasn't raised as an only child at all because I had a lot of friends on the street. We played together, we all helped each other and shared everything. I have really beautiful memories of my childhood."
Jarmila Zaviačičová, birth name Konečná, was born on 22 September 1937 in Kroměříž. Her father Jan, who worked as a roofer, died in 1941 from a ruptured appendix. Her mother Jiřina then became the sole breadwinner as a seamstress. She grew up in modest circumstances in the Jewish quarter of Kroměříž, where she made friends with both Czech and Jewish children. In 1942, she witnessed the deportation of the Jewish population to concentration camps and the destruction of the synagogue. She survived the air raids and subsequent stays in shelters. In May 1945, she saw the liberation of the town by the Romanian, Soviet and Czechoslovak armies. After the war, she attended events held under the auspices of the YMCA organization and became a member of the Boy Scouts. Later, as a member of Pioneer, she trained in two Spartakiads. In 1956, she graduated from the secondary pedagogical school in Kroměříž. She worked as a teacher all her life. She married a teacher, Zdeněk Zaviačič, and had three children with him. As a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), she condemned the occupation in 1968, but did not have to leave the party after party vetting. At the time of the interview (2024) she lived in Chropyně.
Jarmila Zaviačičová at home, filming with pupils of the Hulín Primary School - Aneta Malinčíková and Ludmila Doláková, Stories of Our Neighbours, Chropyně - Františkov, 14 November 2023
Jarmila Zaviačičová at home, filming with pupils of the Hulín Primary School - Aneta Malinčíková and Ludmila Doláková, Stories of Our Neighbours, Chropyně - Františkov, 14 November 2023
photo: Olga Zapletalová Stories of our neighbours
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