Alena Thinius

* 1935

  • "I have to say that nothing has harmed me [during communism]. Because I graduated from school without any problems, I found a job. The problem is that today everyone is losing their certainty. It was on those certainties... That was the most important thing when one was working. Nowadays they say, 'Compare it to the queues for bananas or oranges. Nowadays, you can get anything you can think of in any shop. And you can travel.' But of course you need to have money to travel."

  • "Our father collapsed after my mother died, so he was retired and had about six hundred crowns a month. So I had to support the child, the nanny, the house and my grandfather. It wasn't a happy time, but somehow I survived. I had the same vision as the professor, I said to myself, 'You can't be here, it's horrible.'"

  • "We have so many homeless people today and people picking up trash, I don't remember anything like that during the war. During the war there were food stamps and you had to make do with those somehow. However, we were lucky enough that my father worked in the Black Brewery and he didn't smoke, so what he saved, we would take to relatives within the extended family and there was always some of that food brought in."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 16.12.2016

    (audio)
    délka: 48:32
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

When I came to a shop in Germany, they immediately started shouting at me: Ausländer!

Childhood in the countryside
Childhood in the countryside
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Alena Thinius, née Roubíková, was born on 20 March 1935. Her father was a tradesman and owned a small pub in Prague. Because of her background, Alena Thinius had trouble being admitted to grammar school and then university. She did not even apply to medical school out of fear, but was eventually accepted to the University of Chemical Technology and graduated in plastics. She was one of Prof. Wichterle‘s last students before his dismissal. She taught at a grammar school and later worked in a biochemical laboratory, at the office of occupational safety and at the hydrometeorological institute, where she published scientific articles. At the Czech Technical University she studied automation and control as a postgraduate student. In the 1980s she married in Germany and had to give up all her possessions before leaving. After a few years, she divorced and decided to return to Czechoslovakia, but she was able to do so only after many difficulties. For the following years she had to live in poor conditions in small rooms without sanitary facilities or in garages. She gradually returned to her profession and publishing. In 2016 she was living in Prague.