"I was from a bourgeois family and that dragged along with me. The comrades carefully spied on me. The chairwoman of the local Communist Party organisation went to eavesdrop behind the door to check whether I do not teach religious carols. Actually, I did teach the Our Lord Jesus Christ was Born but I composed different lyrics to the melody. When I sensed that there was someone standing behind the door, I would swing the door open. Once I hit the woman in her head. People listened from behind the closed doors. ... It was a horrible time."
"When I was in third grade, I started taking piano classes in the Napajedla convent. The sisters there had excellent education. Most of them had graduated from university. My teacher was Sister Ludmila, she was a wonderful woman and I loved to attend her classes. I was quite talented. Then the year 1953 came and the convent was dissolved. I attended English language classes in the convent as well which was pretty unusual for the time. The dissolution of convent was cruel to the sisters, they had to leave. When they had entered the convent, they brought a whole dowry, as ladies who would get married would. When they chased them away, they could only take one small suitcase with them. My mother, bless her heart, helped some of the sisters, she let them hide their things in our house and they would later come to pick them up."
"Once my parents rode bikes there with me, we went to Zdětín, and we saw a plane on fire falling towards us from the left side. The airplane was not too big but it was on fire. It was apparent that it would fall somewhere nearby. Parents fell to the curb with bikes and me and we survived the explosion without getting injured. We were all shaken and we continued our ride. It is a rather awful memory but when I squint my eyes, I still see the airplane on fire."
Věra Holubová (maiden name Bachmánková) was born on the 29th of April in Prostějov. Her father was a farmer and later on, manager of a small sparkling water and lemonade factory. Her mother was a window dresser and a shop assistant. After the 1948 coup, the Communists closed their factory down. Vera attended piano and English lessons in the convent of Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross, she remembers how the convent was dissolved. Due to family history, she was not admitted to the university. Only after a year of work in the Fatra rubber factory she got the needed credential and could start studying teaching at the university in Olomouc. After obtaining her degree, she spent almost forty years teaching Czech, Russian and Music at the basic school in Napajedla. Since her youth, she sang and danced in a folklore song and dance group, she also founded a folkore group for children, Radovánek, which she led for forty years. Věra Holubová died on August 16, 2022.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
