Then two men came to the door, heard what my mother was saying, and reported her
Stáhnout obrázek
Ludmila Holbová was born on 9 November 1947 in Štítná nad Vláří as the sixth child of her parents Bohumila and František. For generations the family farmed seven hectares of fields scattered around the village. During the harvest in the forty-fifth year, an explosion occurred during the father‘s unfortunate handling of a grenade. Together with his wife and sister, he suffered serious injuries. Ludmila, as a first grade student, told her mother after returning from school that the comrade headmaster had taken down the cross from the classroom wall and replaced it with a portrait of Comrade Malenkov, a Soviet politician. Two draft collectors happened to overhear the mother‘s comment in response to the principal‘s action and turned her in. She was interrogated, charged, but escaped trial - she fell ill and died a year later. During collectivisation, the communists looted the family farm, and the two older siblings were forced to work in a unified agricultural cooperative (JZD). The father found employment in industrial construction, but had to work outside the home. The father‘s sister took care of the minor children. Brother Slávek was not allowed to study and became a bricklayer. Ludmila Holbová was not admitted to medical school. She became a cook. In the nineties she graduated from the evening hotel school with a high school diploma. She worked as a school canteen manager in Brumov. At the time of filming in 2025 she was living in her native cottage in Štítná nad Vláří.
