Jarmila Šulcová

“One problem at the time was children of Romani descent because the Romani mums didn’t want to have their children vaccinated. So it could happen that we went to vaccinate children on a farm in Studénka, and I’d take a driver with me, a strong driver. Because the mother, when she found out, and especially the father, when he found out we were coming to vaccinate them, he’d send the children running into the fields. And then we’d have to go scrounge them up because I needed that mark in my book that showed that the child was vaccinated. And I also wanted to because I wanted to protect the children, of course. But then I can tell you that some of the Romani families were exemplary ones, which took care both to have things neat and tidy so you could really have a cup of coffee or eat or wash yourself in their home. But then there were families where you really couldn’t do anything.”

“Then they kicked us out of the school, the grammar school. Each class had to go somewhere else. So we went through all kinds of schools: your school, the technical school, wine shops, even a pharmacy, or the school in Kosmonosice by the time we reached sixth year. And we finished our sixth year in the catacombs of a church where the teachers would bring us our homework on Mondays, which we’d deliver on Thursdays, and that was that.”