Close to the tragedy in Životice
Marie Burkotová, née Rozbrojová, was born on 21 July 1923 in Prostřední Suchá in the Moravian-Silesian Region, which is now part of the town of Havířov. She went to primary and then high school and started working as a saleswoman at the age of fifteen. She became a shop manager quite soon. During the Nazi extermination operation in nearby Životice on 6 August 1944, she heard shooting and saw the dead being taken away. By then, she was pregnant with her first child and about to go on maternity leave, but she was in the shop for one last day. She worked as a teacher in a kindergarten later on. She and her husband Miroslav Burkot, who was seven years older, had a daughter who was a nurse and later a son who graduated from a technical high school. In 2023, she lived in the Luna Senior Citizens Home in Havířov.