Ludmila Dvořáková

* 1941

  • "Even my aunt ended up badly. She wasn't arrested, but she was affected. She had no place to live when everything was taken away. When there was killing at home, my dad would take the meat to them. And then when she was on her own, she'd write them, don't bring me anything, I've got nowhere to cook it, she was cut off. She used to sleep in the office, but we don't know anything more about her. She stopped contacting us after his death."

  • "Because his grandmother supported him to go to the priesthood, they allowed him [to study]. It was something back then when there was a priest in the family. He just dropped out and studied law school, so it didn't work out anyway. He had to make a lot of extra money to study, he was giving lessons. Then my folks said that all of Mum's dowry, when she married Dad, went to him to finish his education. He was aware of it, he was very devoted to us kids. He supported his brother. He couldn't hear and he was in an institution, so he paid for it all. He really cared. I have a memory of him. He would come in and he would have his head wrapped in sausages, that was something for us. We used to enjoy that, my folks wouldn't even buy us that. And back then, sausages were real sausages, it wasn't water like it is now. He used to bring us toys, books. He was always urging me to study. If he'd kept on pushing, I'd have turned out differently. He didn't have kids until later, so he would have taken me in. He was strict, I wouldn't have had it easy, but otherwise he was good."

  • "The beginnings in the cooperative farm were terribly difficult. When the cooperative started started, they took everything. The cows stayed with us, there was an empty barn next door, so they moved more cows in. My mother used to go to the fields and in the evenings she had to find fodder for them and cut the grass. That was before the cowshed was built. Then the cowshed was built and the farming started to change. Their earnings were better, they weren't so poor, they weren't so bad. Our mother was a hard worker, but she used to say that the way she had it in the cooperative farm, she would never want the fields back. It was a relief to her. She had been left alone to work. My dad was also supportive of getting the cooperative farm established. There were many people who didn't want to go there. I know our three neighbours were in favor. My uncle encouraged them - especially my dad."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Polička, 21.06.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:22:44
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Until today, we don‘t know where my uncle is buried

Ludmila Dvořáková, graduation photo, 1958
Ludmila Dvořáková, graduation photo, 1958
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Ludmila Dvořáková, née Roušarová, was born on 11 January 1941 in Pustá Rybná. Her parents were small farmers. They joined a cooperative farm in 1959. The beginnings in the farm were difficult, but after a while the working and financial conditions improved. The brother of the witness´s father, František Roušar, studied law. During the trial of Rudolf Slánský he was one of the group‘s defence lawyers. In 1954, in the trial of the „Great Council of Trotskyists“, the state court sentenced him to 10 years in prison; he died in prison. The witness wanted to go to a two-year medical school after secondary school graduation, but because of her faith and her imprisoned uncle, she was not admitted. During her lifetime, she changed various jobs. In 1960, she married Josef Dvořák. Together they had four children. The youngest son Petr was deaf and mute. She was at home with him for a year. At the age of four, he entered an institution at Svatý Kopeček near Olomouc, from where he went home on weekends. Her husband resigned from the party in protest against the occupation in August 1968. In 2023, the witness was living lived in Polička.