"Dad was in the Communist Party of the Czechoslovakia so [my sister and I] had a secured and paid summer camp somewhere near Pilsen. We were there when the Russians arrived, on August 21. The organizers had to evacuate us from the camp and take us home or to relatives. The camp was cancelled."
"He found himself in the border area at the end of 1945, because the citizens of the Příbram district, which also included the village of Běřín, where he lived, were to settle in the border area, specifically the area of Klášterec nad Ohří in northern Bohemia. There were more people from Běřín, they knew each other. My grandfather, mother and her sister were given a house to live in. The house had a field, a barn, and a stable. They had several cattle, calves, my mother used to graze them. When there were seasonal jobs like harvesting grain, harvesting potatoes or planting in the spring, grandpa had to hire workers. Mom brought them food, snacks, and drinks to the fields and was there for them. So, she couldn't go to school. According to my mother's memories, my grandfather even paid the fine for her not going to school."
"Whenever something on the farm did not go as the members of the Communist Party of the Czech Republic on the farm imagined, the management of the farm would threaten: 'Wait, we will discuss it in the party and see what we will do with you!' Figuratively, they did not beat us, but it was such a threat from the members of the Communist party. In short, the Communist party of Czechoslovakia did not interest me."
Marie Šlechtová was born on November 5, 1952 in Domažlice and had a sister who was three years younger. Her father Karel Bureš worked as a journalist in the district newspaper Nástup, her mother Marie Burešová went through several working professions. Her grandfather Václav Abrahám settled in the borderlands in northern Bohemia after 1945. In 1968, she lost her father and was evacuated from the summer camp during the August occupation. She graduated from the Secondary Agricultural School in Kadan and graduated in 1973. She continued at the University of Agriculture in Brno, which she graduated in 1979. She worked on a fur farm in Heřmanice near Jaroměř as a zootechnician from 1979 to 1991. She refused to join the Communist Party. Two daughters were born to her, and in 1987 she got married for the second time. She devoted herself to orienteering all her life and participated in cross-country races even in retirement. In 2023, she lived in Jaroměř.
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!
