I experienced the year 1968 [18] there, that was quite harsh. Because our building was occupied, we broadcast from I.P. Pavlova. Subsequently, most decent people were thrown out. Nothing happened to us, we weren't included because we weren't party members. We huddled down together in some fashion. So I lasted there until retirement.
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dagmar simova
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When the children were small, I worked at home. One relative of my husband's had a knitting machine and knitted for some co-op.
He finished school in 1950, and right after the graduation ceremony he had to join the army. And because I was his wife, he went to the PTP [16] and into a mine. The mine was named Starkov, which was in northern Bohemia, then he was at a sawmill in southern Bohemia in Cerna, and then also worked in the forest in Brdy.
When my husband joined the army, I had no job. The railway was taking on people, and was taking everyone; so that I'd be able to at least somehow exist, I applied and was supposed to start working at the Vrsovice train station, keeping records of wagons.
And because I, as a non-party member had had a low salary and thus also a small pension, I gritted my teeth and let myself be rehabilitated. So I was glad to have the index, and to this day remember how Granny wiped it off with her apron.
At that time I was already seeing my future husband. They lived in Vinohrady on Francouzska Street, my husband was also from this poorer family. That is, also... I wasn't, but back then we were both poor.
I had the bad luck that I ended up in front of a commission led by a person I knew from England. He was a teacher, a loathsome Communist, who'd taught us at that Czech school, at our faculty he lectured in Old English. He and my uncle despised each other; they were always having some sort of arguments. This guy had wanted to make a Communist speech in that Czech broadcast, while my uncle, who of course was never a Communist, disagreed with this. When I came for that vetting, it was clear to me that it would end badly. And true enough, the first thing that he barked at me was, 'Where's your guardian?' 'Well, in Paris.' I didn't know yet that my uncle had escaped, I thought that he was in Paris and was working there in the commission, but this asshole already knew it. So he began talking some garbage, and it was clear to me that they'd throw me out.
The next year I already knew that I'd be entering university, so in the summer I was able to go to Most to work in the coal brigade.
My aunt on my father's side, Uncle Josef's wife, returned and took me in with her from that old lady; she even got her old apartment back. But she also had a very small pension, so it really was quite rough. Besides this, we didn't have anything at all to heat with, because coal was rationed, and the ration was somehow sized according to how much was used up. It was simply horrible.
Possessions that my parents had hidden with friends were returned to me without a problem. That which had been confiscated, furniture, the car, my father's office, nothing remained of that anywhere. Overall I've got to say that I was very warmly received in Strakonice. Everyone greeted and hugged me, reminisced about my father... my father really was very popular.
The last thing I found out, about a year after the war, was that my father had died in Auschwitz.
When I arrived in Czechoslovakia, right away I started trying to find out who'd survived. It was clear to me that if someone was to return, our meeting point would be Strakonice, only there could we meet, otherwise no one had anyone's address.
Right after the war ended there were lists from the Red Cross that came, but they were unreliable and a person didn't find out much from them. I found only my mother in them, that she'd died while still in Terezin, where there were still relatively well-kept records. With those that had continued on it was worse, we had only very scant information at our disposal. I found out gradually what had happened to my family. When I was returning to Czechoslovakia, I knew only what had happened to my mother, otherwise nothing.
For one, a lot of us children from that transport met up there again, we hadn't seen each other since then. And then the relationship between students and professors was completely different, because they were in charge of us 24 hours a day. There were some attendants that were supposed to keep an eye on us outside of class hours, but basically it was all up to the teachers.
But when it was possible we talked to each other anyways, and decided that because we were terribly homesick, that we'd return home. That we wouldn't stay in England any longer. The war was raging on, but we simply decided that we'd return. We had it planned that we'd hitchhike, she to Prague, I to Strakonice. We squirreled away cookies, because nothing else would keep, until the day came when we said, 'All right, tonight we're taking off.' And we took off. We crawled out of a window in the hallway onto a fire escape... and that's as far as we got. Someone saw us, so someone nicely explained to us that this just wouldn't do... It was sometime in 1939.
When Grandpa sold those Litice shares of his, he divided up the resulting revenues among his three children. Uncle Jan was already in England, and because they knew that I'd be going there too, my mother transferred her portion to England too, and it was basically intended for me. It paid for the boarding school that I entered. There were a lot of boarding schools in England, and it was considered to be this better education, especially because this school was considered to be something posh, because Mrs. Churchill had studied there in her youth.
The decision that I should go to England took place sometime after the occupation. Then it all went lickety-split, I was supposed to leave on a transport in July [1939]. My sister was also supposed to go, and we'd been picked out by some family, that we'd be staying with them. But then my sister broke her leg, and what then happened is something I'll never forgive my parents. They said that she can't go anywhere with a broken leg, and that she won't leave until the September transport, when she's well. As is known, the September transport never left. The family that I was supposed to live with backed off, they wanted siblings, so that it would be easier, so then it was in some way arranged with those uncles of mine, who were both already in England, so I was told that I'd go visit my uncles for the summer holidays, which I was terribly looking forward to doing. When I was saying goodbye to my parents and my whole family, I had no inkling of how things would end up, that I'd never see them again. I can't imagine that my parents wouldn't have been afraid for me, but doubtlessly their fear was less than that of parents that had no idea of what was going to happen to their child.
Not in school, there no one cared who was of what religion. Perhaps only that I would have very much liked to have joined the Scouts, but as a Jewish girl they didn't want me. The Scouting movement, at least the one in Strakonice, was a very anti-Semitic organization. So that disappointed me.
But then, when the Germans came, this doctor joined forces with the head doctor at the Strakonice hospital, you can probably imagine what he was about, if during the time the Germans were there he became the mayor of Strakonice, and they arranged for my father to be thrown out of the medical chamber.
We used to go on a lot of outings with our parents, also during summer vacation. Then we would spend tons of time in Litice, near Kysperk. Grandma used to come with us, it was gorgeous there. I used to walk with Grandma along the Orlice River along this gorgeous route, then we'd come to a mulberry grove... it was beautiful.
The community was fairly cohesive, so my parents had quite a few Jewish friends that they saw, but also had a lot of non-Jewish friends. Of course, I didn't pick my friends according to what religion they were, but among others I was friends with the children of the co-owner of the Strakonice fez factory, the Menkators, who were Jews.
Of the Jewish holidays that we celebrated, it's Chanukkah that's mainly stayed in my memory, I quite liked it. We used to go to the synagogue with lights, we used to get candy... But at home we celebrated Christmas as well, and I even used to walk with my girlfriends in the Corpus Christi procession, but the rabbi never saw that. Once I made this big blunder. We had a Christmas tree at home, and I thought it was a matter of course, so out of great love, this was probably in Grade 1, I invited the rabbi to come to our place to have a look at it. He didn't come, of course, and to top it all off he was horrible about it. So thus ended my great faith, even though I had to keep on attending religion, which was mandatory.
Because our father was a doctor, we were better off materially, and so we always brought those girlfriends from my class, whose parents were unemployed, to our house for lunch. My mother and the maid cooked twenty lunches a day. Even when the table was folded out, we had to eat in two shifts so that we could all have a turn. It went on like this for about three years, from Monday to Saturday, because back then you went to school on Saturday too.
In Strakonice I attended all of elementary school, which is five grades.
So, every winter I was in the mountains with my grandma for one week. It was this sort of spring break of mine, which otherwise didn't exist.
Both our parents did a lot of sports, and also encouraged us to do sports as well. They swam, skied... Always, when Father closed his practice before lunchtime, he'd go for a swim in the Otava, a little ways away from us, underneath the castle, there was a weir. When I came home from school I'd go with him. It was fantastic. There'd be water falling on us below the weir, it was simply very nice...
The Strakonice of my youth looked similar to the way it does today. The city center is the same. The castle and church are still there; just the bridge over the Volynka has been torn down. Actually, the Volynka feeds into the Otava in front of our house, now it's been done so that the bridge over the Otava also goes across the Volynka. There, where there used to be this sprawling neighborhood of little bungalows with gardens, there is now a concrete city of 'panelaks' [prefab apartment buildings]. And also in the middle of the old town, where our school used to be, there's a hideous eyesore of a heating plant with a hideous, tall chimney.
I don't know when and where my parents actually met. It must have been some sort of coincidence, when each of them was from a different part of the country. But their wedding took place in 1926 in Prague, at the Old Town Hall.
My great-grandfather worked in Novy Bydzov as a stationmaster. Grandpa also worked for the railway, but he didn't last long there.
My father's family, and my mother's as well, was perfectly assimilated. For sure they didn't keep kosher or anything like that.