Marta Zděnková

* 1944

  • "I worked that in the printery during the occupation. Mom used to go there for a while, so we got up in the morning, we had breakfast, we turned on the radio. And now the radio was silent, everything deaf. We did not know, what was going on? Well, so we went to work, and as we came back, we already learned that we were occupied by the Russian. I worked in lithography, so immediately the older gentlemen, who were there, they started their agenda; leaflets with Dubček and tree-colours were printed. And whatever was possible, even various leaflets against the Russians. And the younger ones, like us, we were a kind of a wall, if by accident… As no one knew, what they could occupy, they could have taken the printery too. So, if by any chance they came, then they would not learn or so everyone could hide out. And then I know that the older ones with the cars were delivering it again."

  • "Actually, when I was supposed to leave school, collective farm just started here, and Hradištko was probably the last village in the district, where there was no collective farm yet. My dad worked in a printing house. I remember he came and said to the mother, 'We need to talk, I have something to tell you.' And the next day my mother went to sign the application for the cooperative, but only later, from the former secretary, who was working there at the time, did I learn that if it weren't for the director, who was there at the time, whose name was Broža, my father was taken away right away because he was a hot-headed person. Something happened there, I don't know what it was exactly. He was given the condition that either the mother would come to sign or that they would come for him. That's how the cows had to go, all of them to the collective farm. And my mother, as she was the youngest along with Mrs. Břízová, they were obliged to guard them. But nothing was fenced back then, they just had to run after them. And she always came back complaining, 'I'm so tired!' So I said, 'I'm always going to help you in afternoons.'"

  • Full recordings
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    v Hradištku, 20.03.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:07:26
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Respect what you have

Marta Zděnková in 1952
Marta Zděnková in 1952
photo: Archiv Marty Zděnkové

Marta Zděnková was born on January 21, 1944 in Davle. That is where her parents were evicted during World War II. At that time, the parents built a house in nearby Brunšov near Štěchovice, but the whole area was taken over by the Nazis during the war due to the establishment of a training ground for SS units. The family returned to the vacated house, even with a small farm where the Germans lived and after the liberation, after the war. However, their farm did not last long and the family had to join the collective agricultural unit, so they handed over theier cattle and property. She trained as a lithographer and worked all her life in a printing house in Hradištěk. In August 1968, anti-occupation leaflets were printed at the printing house. She has lived in the house inherrited from her parents all her life, and has two sons.