"We had our wedding in the Všenory church and in Černošice at the national committee. And I'll tell you something interesting. I only wanted to go to the national committee in a civilian way, without a flower. My brother was my witness, he served at the PTP troops. They only let him go to the wedding I had at that office. So he couldn't be at the feast, he couldn't do anything, he had to hurry. He worked then - I think it was called Dubňany - in Slovakia, as a labourer. The taxi driver who took us to the wedding said: 'Bring a flower or you will be in trouble with the communists for disdaining the marriage.' It was customary at that time - at the national committee, and in the afternoon in the church in Všenory. And then I had the wedding in white, the way it used to be."
"Once I was sick for a long time and my mother told me that when I came to school, I would have a new classmate there. And she has hair tails as long as mine. I had my hair long down to my waist so I was curious what the classmate was like. Well, I came to school, she was really almost the same height as me, maybe a centimetre taller, and she was very nice. Gradually, I learned from her parents that her parents had taken her to Pilsen. There was a large group of people who were working against Hitler and they took them out. The classmate's parents were doctors. First, they took the mother, and the father told Janinka that if they also took him, she should move to her aunt in Dolní Černošice. And that aunt's husband was also locked up. So, she was alone and had her little children and now this Janinka came. I learned this from my mother, but I don't know where my mother heard these rumours about Janinka. When her mom was executed, her aunt didn't send her to school because there were red posters everywhere that said who was executed. It was posted in the municipalities and it took about a week for it to be posted. So she was at home and her aunt told her that she needed to provide for the children somehow to help her with the little children. Something like that so she wouldn't find out why she had to be home. She went to school until the posters were down. They did that throughout the war. However, when the war was over, of course she expected her parents to come. So the aunt told her how everything was. Janinka then lived with relatives in Prague, studied high school and then medicine and became a doctor in the military hospital in Střešovice. When someone from Mokropes came there, she let me say hello. And we didn't see each other again until I got an obituary from her daughter."
Marie Novotná, née Vošalíková, was born on July 28, 1930 in Mokropsy near Prague as the daughter of the respected mayor of Mokropsy, Karel Vošalík (1893–1965). She lived through the beginning of the war as a schoolgirl, Czech children shared a substitute school building with German children, who were subjected to a harsh „Aryan“ education. She befriended a classmate whose parents were executed for participating in the resistance. The desire to work with children led her to pedagogy. In 1948, the parents were declared kulaks and the farm was expropriated. Two years younger brother Karel completed his military service with the infamous PTP (Auxiliary Technical Battalions) and then worked on a state farm, driving a tractor or combine harvester. After 1989, he did not start farming independently. The young teacher was placed in the Šluknov region, which after the expulsion of the Germans underwent major changes, mostly for the worse. She enjoyed the work and gained a very good reputation. In 1953, she married the son of Russian legionnaire Ladislav Novotný. The couple settled in Mokropsy, where Marie Novotná got a job as a director of a kindergarten in Vráž - part of Mokropsy. Although the situation of the young couple was not excellent, they supported Vošalík‘s parents, who suffered greatly during the anti-kulak persecution. Marie Novotná died in 2021.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
