Helena Fraňková

* 1941

  • "Not to me [they didn't offer her to join the Communist Party], but they offered it to my husband because he was the leader of the forestry. And you know what, he was being pushed a lot. They said, 'Look, Mr. Franek, you have three children here. They're not going to get anywhere in school. You'll have a problem. Pepa said, 'No, they'll go to the forest, work in the forest, if they don't get admitted to school anywhere, but I'll never go to the party.' The Border Guard was there."

  • "My husband had a sister, Bozenka. She also got married and married a guard. We already lived here [Nové Hutě]. I was already married, we already had a girl. Suddenly the police come to us. I said: 'You, Pepa, what did the police want? What have we done?' 'We have to go home.' As Bozka [my husband's sister] had a husband, he shot his wife, his grandfather, as a father-in-law, and himself in one house."

  • "My mother gave me to a farmer who had nine children. He sent them to school, and I, as an eleven and twelve-year-old, was still changing the nappies, washing, and carrying water for about half a kilometer. He didn't send me to school for about three months. He didn't send me to school at all, and his children went to school. I just took care of their household."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Borová Lada, 08.01.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 01:14:46
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

If it weren‘t for good neighbors, they‘d starve to death

Elen Fraňková during filming, 2024
Elen Fraňková during filming, 2024
zdroj: Post Bellum

Elen Fraňková was born on 1 May 1941, the youngest of four children of Rosálie and Ondřej Filiapjak in the small village of Línia in central Slovakia. She came from very poor circumstances. The family lived on a small farm. When Elen was about one year old, the German army invaded the village and looted their farm. The father, who defended the family and the livelihood, was beaten so badly that he died within a few days. After that, the family experienced real poverty. It was only thanks to the support of others in the village that the family managed to see the end of the war. After the war, Elen started primary school. The difficult family situation did not allow her to go to school regularly. From about the age of 11, like her siblings, she had to work for local farmers instead of attending school. In 1959, she came to Šumava for a temporary job, where she met her future husband Josef Fraňek, a forester at Nové Huty. They married in 1960 and had a daughter Martina and later a son Ladislav. In 1961, a tragedy happened in Josef Fraňek‘s sister‘s family. Sister Božena Sviňková and her father were shot by her sister‘s husband Karel Sviňka, who then committed suicide. They left behind a few months old son Rostislav. Elen Fraňková and her husband did not hesitate and adopted their little nephew. Since the 1960s, the witness worked and lived in the border region of Šumava. She never joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). At the time of filming (2024) she lived in Borová Lada.