Věra Ničová

"I grew up in Prague, they were in Holice. Grandma would send us a package of pies or some kind of pastries quite often. She sent us fruit, sometimes there were eggs hidden in the flour - they were a rare commodity during and after the war. And sometimes grandpa would come visit us, grandma never did. She was quite strong and it would be difficult for her to get on the train, on those little steps. We were always very much looking forward to her packages, but we were never allowed to cut open the strings. I remember that to this day people make fun of me when I say: 'Don't cut it, don't cut it, we'll untie it, it's a waste of string otherwise.' Grandpa would wrap the package so that it would arrive in one piece, so the string would wrap two or three times around the width and also lengthwise, everywhere at every intersection there was a knot, a proper one. But, in addition to teaching us how to economize, it was wonderful that we had to overcome the terrible desire to just go straight at it. And little by little, the bundle would come undone, then the string was wound up, then the paper was properly unwrapped, it was folded, and only then could we open the package."

"And my mother remembered, my first mother, how she had suffered at school. That the teacher really bullied her there. She would always be standing at the front of the class as punishment, he would show her off like a wild animal, because on the one hand she was poor: they lived in a poorhouse (like the houses for shephards that used to be in villages) and secondly they were communists. So the teacher would always find something. Well, at 45, the teacher became a communist and was beating other children. He was a case, they should have fired him at some point.”