Antonie Draxelová

* 1946

  • "Then they got married in the church, and when they went from the church to the kamín, to the community centre, they sang: They're leading my sweetheart out of the church, that time you're mine, my precious one, that time you're mine! I'm not yet, my dear boy, I'm still my mother's. I'm not yet, my sweet boy, I'm still my mother's. I'm off to war, home from war, you're still single. Who were you waiting for, my Nanynka, who were you waiting for, my Nanynka? I've been waiting, my sweet boy, I've been waiting for you. For you to come home from the war, for you to come home from the war and for us to get married."

  • "I did four classes here and then I went to Lapušník, that's not far from here. There were a lot of us, but we already had Franta, he was three years old. I went with my husband. We went there and did four more classes to learn Romanian, that they would make a collective, and that they would take away the fields from us. And so that we wouldn't work in the field and make ourselves masters, so I got eight classes."

  • "It was like this: There were no small vehicles or buses or anything coming here. My daddy had nice horses. He put bells on them, tied their tails, and he used to go all the way to Božovice to get this teacher Pejša, so he always brought him. He said to him [to my father] on the way: 'Petrouš, don't let Tonička be tormented here, so that she wears that basket on her back all her life, because she could be a lady even in Prague.' In Prague - not in Šumice! Today, I wouldn't go anywhere from Šumice."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Šumice, 14.09.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:11:59
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

You‘ll get married and work in their fields. I was only 16 years old

Antonie Draxelová Kalinová v roce 1961, na snímku jí bylo 15 let
Antonie Draxelová Kalinová v roce 1961, na snímku jí bylo 15 let
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Antonie Draxelová (Draxel in Romanian), née Kalinová, was born on 8 August 1946 and grew up in the Czech village of Šumice in the Romanian Banat. Her parents owned a small farm and from childhood involved her in agricultural work. In nearby Putna, the Kalina family built a mill in 1933, which was nationalized by the Communist government after the coup in Romania, and her grandfather‘s family moved to Šumice to join her family. In her birthplace, Antonie completed four grades and worked on the farm from that point on. At the age of 16, she married Josef Draxel and after the birth of her son, she managed to complete four years of Romanian school in the village of Lapušnik (Lăpușnicel). She used to go to the market to sell in Oršava, several dozen kilometres away. At the time of the building of Romanian socialism, the family paid compulsory agricultural supplies to the state. She worked on the farm all her life. After the overthrow of the communist regime in the country, the family regained ownership of the mill in Putna. At the time of filming (September 2023), Antonie Draxelová was living in Šumice.