Jaroslava Kravčenková roz. Pernicová

“Little Hanička came to me and said: ‘Comrade Jarunka, somebody has filched my money.’ All right, have a look once again, she was looking for it and she did not find it. I said: ‘My dear pupils, you know what? I am a teacher, I am no policeman, and so I will now place the class book on the table and we will all go out of the classroom and the person who has the one hundred crown banknote will place it inside the class book.’ To put it short, when I then opened the class book, the hundred crown banknote was inside. I thanked them and I said: ‘I will be now correcting your Czech language exercise books and I will be at school until three o’clock. If somebody would like to explain something to me, come to see me.’ At five minutes to three it happened. Maruška, imagine that a woman was living with some man, and nobody knew that the man was a drunkard and a thug and a choleric and that he spent all the money on alcohol and the kids had not eaten already for three days. And he [the boy who stole the money] did not mean to steal, but he did it for his siblings. Even now I have never mentioned his name and nobody has learnt anything. I told him: ‘Don’t be afraid, I won’t tell it to anyone. Just you coming to tell me is something so amazing.’ But I did cause such a stir in that family that the man has been meek as a lamb ever since.”

“I just want to say one thing, I was on my maternity leave with Igor and I want to say that I have not done anything at all. Nothing, nothing at all. How could I be guilty of something? But the students at our pedagogical faculty organized a memorial service for Jan Palach and that’s how it all started. That’ how it all started. I stopped thinking that those were people who did it.” – “And you were then not allowed to work in education and you were searching for a job and how did it turn out?” – “My first job was in a bakery in Jugoslávská Street. I came there and I said that I was without a job, after a funeral, and that I did not have any money and I had three sons.” – “Tell me about your husband, what happened to him?” – “He shot himself. What happened... we were the same age […], and he was a wonderful man. And he was on duty [he was a policeman] in Příbor. He was motioning to a car in front of him to stop, because the car’s rear lights were not functioning. And the driver was backing up very slowly and Robert was approaching the car and another car hit him. The car crash was so horrible that it ended in suicide.” – “And you were working in the bakery at that time?” – “I came there and the manager asked me who I was and I said that I was a teacher: ‘What? And you want to work in a bakery?’ I said that I didn’t care where I would work, but that my sons needed to live. Fine, come today at two o’clock at night then, you will work in the delivery place. And it was so nice with those people, they were so kind. I came to the oven and a gentleman explained to me how to make bread rolls. And another man came there and asked me: ‘Mrs. teacher, would you be so kind and tell me what the name of the last Jewish princess was?’ I said: ‘Certainly, her name was Bereniké.’ And he exclaimed: ‘She is really a teacher!’”