Věra Harrerová

* 1927

  • "For five years I went to what we called Preparandia. From there I went from fifth grade to high school. Unfortunately, I couldn't finish the Prima because at that time it was 1938 and Levice, as I told you, where I lived, fell to the Hungarians. My parents found out at seven o'clock in the evening that they had to move out by seven o'clock the next day. Each family would be assigned one military truck, and they could load what they could from their apartment and their family onto that truck, and by seven o'clock they had to leave the town where I was born. So you can imagine that at two o'clock at night, but I remember it all, they loaded me next to the driver with my mother, my dad was watching the furniture in that back compartment, and we drove to the village where they just dropped us off. We were fortunate because my dad worked in the district office and had friends nearby, it was about thirty kilometers from that Levice, that we were settled there. My dad had to go from there every day to another small town to work, where the Slovak district office was transferred. And every day I walked three kilometers to the next village. There was no school where we were evicted, in Pečenice. And I ran to school every day, summer, winter, all year round. Can you imagine, when from all the comforts I had at home in those Levice, suddenly we were in a tiny village and I went to school with children every day."

  • "In Havlickuv Brod, it was on 9 May 1945, when the war ended, the front broke in front of Havlickuv Brod, so to speak, or the Germans started to flee. They weren't fighting back anymore, they were just running away wherever they could, so that they wouldn't fall into the hands of the Russians. So this is where the Germans got scared. And it was in front of Havlickuv Brod. That moment, when we knew the war was over, there would be no bombing, we went into the town. I will not forget the sight where there was a truck full of German soldiers or I don't know what kind of soldiers they were. They were lying stacked on top of each other and I won't forget the moment when I saw the bullet-riddled skulls. That was my moment from my childhood. So again I say, be happy and cherish it and do everything you can to keep your republic anyway. And that European Union is one of the most important things to me, that you don't have to live through moments like that."

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    Týnec nad Labem, 13.11.2019

    (audio)
    délka: 01:22:14
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

If you know the language, you have an open world

Věra Harrerová in a period photograph
Věra Harrerová in a period photograph
zdroj: Věra Harrera's archive

Věra Harrerová was born on 20 April 1927 in the Slovak town of Levice. Her father Jan Březský was a Czech who worked as a civil servant there, her mother Margarita came from Slovakia. As a result of the Vienna Arbitration, Levice fell to Hungary in November 1938 and the family had to hastily move to the village of Pečenice in the Slovak interior. After the declaration of the Slovak State in March 1939, the family finally left Slovakia. The father left first, and Věra and her mother followed him after about a year. They settled in Německý (today Havlíčkův) Brod, where they also experienced the end of the war. Věra graduated from the business academy, after the war she studied languages in Prague. In 1947 she worked as an interpreter at the 1st World Festival of Youth and Students in Prague. She worked for the American steamship company United State Lines. In 1950 she married and followed her husband Jan Harrer to his home town of Týnec nad Labem. The family owned a tannery there, which they lost during nationalization. Věra worked in the telephone exchange. After the Velvet Revolution, she put her language skills to full use.