Anna Vaňatová

* 1941

  • "The year 1969 also had an impact on my family. My husband was quite radical in his speeches and consistent, so he was fired from the agricultural school. He was expelled along with Ing. Vosecký, then from the forestry plant in Žlutice Ing. Lepší and a teacher from the primary school Mr. Sýkora. They were called the Zlutice Four, they were the most radical. They were all communists, but they didn't knock them down, so they went. Vosecký ended up somewhere in Lubenec, Lepší in the Bochov forest, Sýkora in the primary school in Bochov and Vaňata didn't get a job. He couldn't get a job. So we went to Hořín near Mělník, where there was a farm. There they promised to employ him as an agricultural expert. They showed us a house to live in, we were overjoyed. On the way, my husband bought me a white handbag, happy that something had been found after all. But within a few days a letter came saying no."

  • "One night I was awakened by some inspiration or divine power. I woke up and stood in a room that had windows facing the workshops. The courtyard was all glass and I could see that it was all red and on fire. I woke my parents up, and my dad ran downstairs in his underpants, opened the door and started screaming that it was on fire because we didn't have a phone. Mommy was screaming too. We were all packing our things. Someone from the back had entered the area and the workshops were on fire. It was on fire. It was crazy, the door was charred all the way up to the apartment, we had jams in there, we had jams in the cellar, everything was charred, it was horrible. They wanted to blame it on us for getting revenge. That was the worst. In the end, it was investigated that we couldn't have done it. It wasn't dad and it wasn't us. Then there were also witnesses when a locomotive was passing on the railway from Prague to Brno and the passengers saw that there was a fire at our place, so they reported it to someone. But nobody noticed it, we have the impression that it was the intention to destroy us as people, including our lives."

  • "On October 28, 1949, men came for my father at night and would not even let him go to the bathroom. He wasn't even allowed to wear underpants or suspenders, they went to watch him so that he wouldn't accidentally hang himself or run away, they even watched him in the toilet. They took him away in an Anton and with him from Letovice they took Mr Červinka and Mr Novotný. Mr Červinka produced textiles, upholstery fabrics, carpets and curtains. Mr Novotný had a motor car, it was a car repair shop, today it would be called a service. They took them all to Brno to Cejl. On the way, they had a sentence read to them, in which they were told that they were enemies of the people's democratic establishment, that they had brought shame on the state by their behaviour, and many other justifications. When they were in Brno, they were sorted into various camps, and dad was taken to Třinec to the ironworks, where there was a forced labour camp, and that's where dad ended up."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Valeč, 05.03.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 01:43:56
  • 2

    Valeč, 07.03.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 02:25:50
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

My father was arrested, my husband was fired from his job. She suffered from communism from the beginning to the end

During studies in Decin, 1959
During studies in Decin, 1959
zdroj: Archive of the witness

Anna Vaňatová, nee. Chládková, was born on 13 April 1941 in Brno. She grew up in Letovice, where her father František Chládek ran a furniture business. In 1949, the Communists sentenced her father to two years of forced labour and nationalized the company. Due to these circumstances, the witness was later not accepted to the art and industry high school in Brno, which she got into. She eventually studied at the agricultural school in Děčín, where she met her husband, Václav Vaňata, who was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). They worked in various agricultural jobs and settled in Žlutice. Her husband was fired from his job in 1969 because of his views, and had problems finding new employment. He died in 1973. Her children also had problems with the possibility to study under communism. Anna Vaňatová worked as a primary school teacher, she also worked in Pionýr and as an educational counsellor and social worker. In 2024 she lived in Žlutice.