My father was a die-hard communist, my mother believed Hitler was still alive
![Karin Macháčková, Děčín, 1961](/sites/default/files/2023-09/1961_Decin_dobova.jpg)
Stáhnout obrázek
Karin Macháčková was born on 17 December 1943 in the Rüdersdorf labour camp during one of the heaviest air raids on Berlin by the British Air Force. Her father went to Germany voluntarily to work to avoid being drafted into the army. There, he met the mother of the witness, who lost her German nationality after the marriage and had to live with her father in a labour camp. At the end of the war, the family returned home to Czechoslovakia with almost-two-year-old Karin, and her parents smuggled her father‘s brother across the border in the bottom of her pram. They settled first in Hudlice near Beroun, then in Most and finally moved to the Děčín region as part of the settlement of the border area. Karin Macháčková‘s childhood was not a happy one. She had three sisters whom she had to take care of due to her mother‘s poor health. Moreover, her mother had longed to return to her native Germany all her life, so she tried to escape several times across the border. However, she was detained by the border guards each time, and her father, a die-hard communist, was in big trouble because of his wife‘s behaviour. The witness studied reproduction photography, married and worked all her life in the Severografia printing house. She and her husband raised two children. In 2023, the witness lived in Česká Kamenice. We were able to record her story thanks to support from the Ústí nad Labem Region.