Jiřina Kotalíková

“It was an elementary school, which lasted five years, and then this was followed by three years in a higher elementary school, this is what corresponds to the second stage of elementary today. But for those of us who lived in those small villages which were far from the school, attendance was not mandatory and we did not have to go. We were allowed to spend the whole three years in the fourth grade, so to speak. And none of the girls went there. Only the smarter boys from our village continued in the second stage. Well, so I was a kind of pioneer.”

“But there was the blackout and everything had to be covered when we turned the light on, and we had to have black curtains, and hard black papers, and not even a small opening in between them was allowed. This was done so that foreign airplanes would not be able to navigate by the light. And if you went outside, it was not allowed to use a torch, and there were no street lamps, and if you wanted to go out with a handheld torch, it had to be covered with a blue foil.”