“My father took me to school every day to the real elementary school of St. Anton and then he went to the state office, where he was employed as a forestry assistant. And all the way from home to school I had to cite grammar, conjugations and more... German. That I remember exactly as the only day, in March 1939 we just walked in silence. Without a single word. And the other day he said: ´You best beat your enemy, if you know his language! And once again we started with German.”
“Always when there were sirens above Vienna so all of us called Žabiňáci, classmates, we ran home to Žabin, downhill from Tábor and here we were back home again. When they began to announce the end of alarm, we were coming back to work. So one day they began to blow sirens again and we wanted to run out again and the director Mosblech was standing at the door and didn’t want to let us go and kept his finger pointed up... and here they were, the Americans. That was the bombing of Kuřim back then. They threw the bomb at the avenue of captain Jaroš (note: in Brno). So just when the director stopped us we had to hide in a bunker. And we heard it in there, it blew really loud. We were just shaking in fear as it was really terrible. And when it ended, we found out that it fell near us... as the street Pod kaštany is not too far from Lužánky, or is it. So we heard the blast from the bunker as they threw it down...”
Květoslava Bednářová, née Zelená, was born on 12 May, 1924 in Opava as the second daughter of the husbands Josef and Anna. Her childhood was scared by a sudden death of her mother, who died soon after the birth of the third daughter. Her father remarried very soon also for his three young children. His second wife became Karolína Zábršová from Nové Město in Moravia. In 1932 the family moved to Brno. The witness visited Sokol as a child and together with her other siblings attended an evangelic church. During war she belonged to the year, which had to serve forced labour for the Reich, but was lucky enough to stay in Brno. She worked as a Czech secretary in operations led by the Germans manufacturing small parts. After war she married and gave birth to two sons. In 1970s she was fired from job for alleged labour disputes. Květoslava Bednářová tried to defend herself in court, but lost, also due to the fact she was unjustly given a psychiatric diagnosis, of which she had no idea. After 1989 in her own words she reached an apology for the diagnosis. Květoslava Bednářová currently lives in Brno.
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