"First we went from home to the camp, which was in Épernay, the city of champagne. We had a camp there, it was full of Czechs. We were waiting for transport. We couldn't go during the day, after the war the rails were not free, we had to travel to Bohemia only at night. We traveled for almost five days through Germany. I remember how we drove through broken towns, it was an ugly journey. Then we arrived in Pilsen and stayed there with my aunt, my mother's sister, Mrs. Myslíková." - "And from Pilsen?" - "We spent a fortnight there and then they sorted out who would go where on business. Daddy was offered a job as head carpenter in Nejdek near Karlovy Vary. We went to Nejdek, we lived in a small house. Mummy told Daddy that she didn't want to go to any of the houses left by the Germans, because they had left, they were poor. She saw them as humans and didn't want to live in the Germans' house. Fortunately, Daddy found a house that was not the Germans' house, but it was occupied by Czechs who had moved to Germany. I don't know why, but when the war ended, they moved out and we lived in the house left by the Czechs."
"My brother was distributing leaflets, so the Nazis sent him to Germany as a punishment for forced labour, he was in Leipzig." - "And what did he do there?" - "He was doing his trade in a factory there. There was a big repair shop there." - "Did he go to a concentration camp?" - "It was about 1943, 1944, and we agreed that he would try to get to Czechoslovakia. But unfortunately he was caught with another Czech friend. He wanted to go to Bohemia, to his aunt in Pilsen, and wait for us there, because he knew that after the war we would go to Bohemia. We already had our papers, which were recognized by the Czech consulate, only we were going later than we should have. My brother was caught and put in a concentration camp as punishment. He was a young man, he was starving, had a bad diet, got pneumonia and died. They didn't kill him, no, but he died of illness." - "Do you know what concentration camp he was in?" - "In Leipzig. Unfortunately, we have no record of how or when he died. We were told by a Czech who was there with him and survived. He told us by chance when he met my father in Nejdek and asked him if he was František Kroupa. Daddy said yes. 'But he did die,' said the man. The son looked like his father, so he thought it was his brother. That's how we accidentally found out that my brother had died."
"We were running away from the Germans. The radio announced that whoever could, should flee to the interior of France. Mum and Dad grabbed us, we were twins, two nine-year-old girls, and we walked almost forty kilometres every day. In total, we walked 150 kilometers. We would get up at four in the morning and walk until ten and then sleep in the woods, that was in June." - "What was it like for you as a child?" - "We as kids took it for granted that it was the way it was supposed to be because our parents didn't complain, so we didn't think about what a bad thing it was that we were running away. Then the Germans caught up with us and laughed at us. There was hunger, we had nothing to eat, the shops were closed or bombed, I experienced great hunger. It wasn't until my mother had to ask the German soldiers to give us a piece of bread that they gave us their German brot."
Zdeňka Fučíková, née Kroupová, was born on 14 June 1930 in Oissel, France. Her father František Kroupa fought in the First World War in the Austro-Hungarian army, was captured and later joined the Czechoslovak legions in France. In 1926, he decided to leave with his family to work in France. The Kroupas had planned to return to Czechoslovakia, but because of the Second World War, this was not possible. During the occupation of France they had to flee from the German army. The brother of the witness František Kroupa Jr. was sent to forced labour in Germany for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets. He tried to escape, but the Nazis caught him and imprisoned him in a concentration camp, where he died of pneumonia. After the war in 1946, the Kroupas returned to Czechoslovakia, finding a new home in the border town of Nejdek in the Karlovy Vary region. The witness had planned to return to France, but the communist coup prevented her from doing so. She married Bohumil Fučík, who also came from France, and they started a family together. She trained as a seamstress and worked in the textile industry. From the 1950s onwards, she returned to France repeatedly. She eventually spent most of her life in Františkovy Lázně, where she was living in 2024.
The Czechoslovak Society in the French town of Oissel, in the front row, third from the right, František Kroupa (father) with the witness on his lap, then her older sister Božena, mother Božena on with sister Helena on the lap. In the fourth row, fifth from the right, older brother František, who died in a concentration camp
The Czechoslovak Society in the French town of Oissel, in the front row, third from the right, František Kroupa (father) with the witness on his lap, then her older sister Božena, mother Božena on with sister Helena on the lap. In the fourth row, fifth from the right, older brother František, who died in a concentration camp
