Zdenka Tesařová

“I come from Veliko Središte and there was a Czech school in Središte. I went to the Czech school in the first, second, third and fourth grades. There was none from the fifth grade upwards, so I went to Serbian school and studied the teachers’ institute in Vršec in Serbian too. I cannot speak correctly; I don’t know all the words other than what I learned at home. What we know we use, and what we don’t know – it’s like in Kruščica: half Czech, half Serbian – what you don’t know in Czech you say in Serbian and that’s that.”

“Let me tell you about Središte. We Czechs would always gather around the church and school and stick together. We made friends with Serbs only later when we went to school together in higher grades. We went to Sunday school and were taught Christmas carols and poems. We would sing carols by the Christmas tree in the library and children got little parcels – fruit, biscuits and sweets for Christmas gifts. On St Nicholas Day parents or neighbours would dress up like St Nicholas and go to families with little children, handing out treats. The night before, children would put their stockings or shoes up on window sills for treats. We would also decorate Christmas trees on Christmas Eve. People often gathered for a chat or to process feathers in the winter. If a family had a lot of feathers to process, they would call for help and neighbours came and worked until midnight. Children played games, men drank wine and played cards, and the host family’s mother made cookies and donuts. If they did not finish the work on the first day, they would come back until their help was needed, and then they went on to help another family. On Easter Mondays we went to say hello to our relatives and neighbours. Children got little treats – an egg, candy, or a dinar, and boys would visit families with girls and whipped them with willow whips, and were given coloured eggs and sweets in return.”