“Later the system was that there was the first elementary school, and other two, and also a special one. It happened like this: the priest met me and said they needed to start teaching religion. And I said: ‘Excuse me Mr. Pastor but I have no special knowledge of religion. I have what I learned at home, and how I was brought up. I know the prayers and...' But he said: 'No, you can do it and live it so we can see how you live, and the children see it and their parents as well. The parents also wish it and we simply do not have so many teachers.' That he wished that. I hesitated for a year, but I started to work as a religion teacher a year later. A newly ordained priest, pastor Jan Plaček also started there, he came from the area of Ostrava, and we taught religion together. We did not teach at schools but in a building which is called At St. Martin's. The children from all the schools always met there and we taught them there. He was in one classroom, and I was in another one. Some were there, some were elsewhere. There were for example three grades together. And it was very demanding to teach religion to three grades at once and have forty-five minutes for it. I always spent the whole week preparing for it and the day I taught I went to St. Martin´s in the morning and wrote it down, there were three boards there. It wrote it for all three groups. It was demanding but I think that I somehow managed it. I always say: 'I somehow managed it with God´s help.' And I saw the result after several years. We went on trips with the children and we from religion organized everything for them. And they were returning from the trip and said: 'I will attend religion again next year because I want to be able to go on this trip. It was fantastic.' So, we did all sorts of things for them.”
“We had free Saturdays for distance learning. I taught at a school where the head teacher was very incompetent, it was in Újezd which was a central village where children from the direction of Valašské Klobouky came. It also included children from Vysoké Pole, Drnovice, Plošina, and part of Újezd and from the other direction it included children from Sehradice, Slopné, Loučka, and the rest of Újezd. He was not able to prepare it in such a way that the pupils would rotate after a week. That one week a part of them would come in the morning and the other part of them would come in the afternoon and then they would change. However, we taught in the way it started the entire year. Moreover, he did not say: ‘You will teach in that class, you in that one, in that one, so you will teach there in the morning and you will teach there in the afternoon.‘ It would not fit him. We were new teachers, so those who were older they – you know how it was. We started to teach every morning at half past seven, it started, it was the first class, then I had for example the fourth or fifth, and in the afternoon, I had the second, third, fourth, fifth – I do not know how many classes we had, five or six per day. It was unbearable. Imagine it: to teach, prepare for the classes, go to the classes, be with the children, write tests, and assign homework. I did not know what to do first and I had distance learning on top of that.”
“The sixth and eighth grades, can you imagine that? Moreover, I was, as people say as thin as a rail because I always had to do something at home and had to run around so I did not have any time to lie around or relax. That was out of the question. And now here it was, that I was from the first or the second day we were... (they told us) I was a teacher the next day. And where was the comprehensive evaluation, where was the resume? Nobody asked for a CV, nobody asked for anything, and the comrade said that they had a lack of teachers. I knew how severe the lack of teachers was. Those were perfect teachers, perfect professionals, but religiously burdened. That was in the1950s. And because it was in the village, they all went to church. They fired them all from their jobs and just... There is no point saying it.”
Marie Loučková, née Oharková, was born on 3 April 1935 in Tlumačov. Both her parents were hardworking farmers from large families. They helped each other, were deeply religious and passed it on to the next generation. They led their children to work. Marie already showed a talent for mathematics at elementary school. As a good student, she was admitted to the eight-year grammar school in Kroměříž. The post-February reforms in education which were after the Soviet model enforced by Zdeněk Nejedlý brought fundamental changes: the students graduated from the last grade of the grammar school during summer break and Marie started her first teaching job on 2 September 1953. She was eighteen years old and had no education in pedagogy. In October, she started distance learning (at university). The communist regime got rid of unwanted teachers and needed new ones. Marie met her husband Ladislav, a former student of theology, in Újezd near Vizovice. They had two sons together. Throughout her teaching career in Újezd, Marie Loučková repeatedly came into conflict with the school management over her religious beliefs. She was willing to leave the school system to preserve her free faith. Since she was an excellent mathematics teacher and the school needed her, she could stay there, but she did not give up the church. Her outspoken, courageous attitude was an example to others during the time of normalization. After moving to Holešov, she continued to teach, and after her retirement, she taught local children religion and worked to rebuild Matice svatohostýnská.
Stud farm in Tlumačov. Josef Váňa, a pupil of the witness, a Czech jockey and trainer who has won Velká pardubická steeplechase eight times started his career as a breeder and horse groom there.
Stud farm in Tlumačov. Josef Váňa, a pupil of the witness, a Czech jockey and trainer who has won Velká pardubická steeplechase eight times started his career as a breeder and horse groom there.
From the left: godmother and aunt Barbora Moláková, cousin Antonín Molák, grandmother Marie Moláková, witness Marie, mother Antonie, in Tlumačov in 1938
From the left: godmother and aunt Barbora Moláková, cousin Antonín Molák, grandmother Marie Moláková, witness Marie, mother Antonie, in Tlumačov in 1938
In the yard of family house n. 46 in Tlumačov. From the left: grandfather Josef Oharek (1868 - 1944), uncle Antonín Oharek, witness Marie and her parents in 1938
In the yard of family house n. 46 in Tlumačov. From the left: grandfather Josef Oharek (1868 - 1944), uncle Antonín Oharek, witness Marie and her parents in 1938
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