“We came to our house and mum went and saw that the door had been sealed. So she said: ‘Jesus Christ, what’s going on?’ We didn’t know what to do. One man from the building, Mr. Bártek, said: ‘Go to the national committee and tell them that you have nowhere to go and have nothing for your children.’ Mother went there and said: ‘At least give me some blankets for the kids if I can’t take anything from the apartment.’ They said: ‘You know what? Cover them with newspaper. And you can move in, to an apartment in Slavonínská street.’ There were these houses there on both sides of the street and there was one room for us there, so we went there. Next to us was a lady with two boys. Mum said: ‘It’s just plain walls here and nothing else.’ So for about two weeks we slept on the floor. Then the people who had already lived there gave us bed and clothes for us kids, for me and my sister. We used to go pick up spikelet; there was a plum alley there and we used to go pick plums. Mum would cook it and then later they build us a stove. We used to go pick up spikelet. Mum always said: ‘Crush it.’ She blew it out, grinded it in her coffee grinder and then made us dumplings. They were black as… But we ate it, we had to. There we would go to the fields and pull out a carrot or a head of cabbage. Well, it wasn’t anything good.”
“Then about three weeks later, a Russian commander came and said: ‘Pack your little bundle. You can go home.’ So we went home. My sister was in a stroller, I held on to the right side of it, mum walked and my older sister next to her. We were passing this bridge, I remember that clearly, when I close my eyes, I see it right in front of me. Water ran down there and a Russian soldier with a bayonet was standing there. When we came closer, he came to me, pointed the bayonet at my belly and laughed like crazy. My mum used to say: ‘If I hadn’t pulled you to me, he would have killed you.’ But then there were nice people who would give us a loaf of bread or lard when we met them on our way home. They felt sorry for everything that had happened. We came home to Olomouc from Ivančice, that’s somewhere near Brno, where the camp had been located.”
“Then I remember how they locked us in a camp. There were Russian soldiers there. And they shaved our heads and draw swastikas on it. We slept on straw mattresses that we had to stuff with straw. There were about twenty of us on each side in one room. That was all. They always brought us lunch in a small bowl and it wasn’t lunch, it was cooked beets or something like that. I remember how the patrol used to walk around the buildings and one of them always peeked inside where we used to lie under the window. Once he told my mum: ‘Missis, give me your daughter. My wife will give her a bath and a good meal. The kids here have nothing to eat.’ My mum refused. But then she allowed it. That was when we had already been in the camp for a long time. When all the younger women like my sister, not my mum, had to work. Life wasn’t easy there. Not even for those young women because the Russians, some were kind but some were… I don’t even want to say it. What they had to go through, these young women.”
Štěpánka Jarůšková was born June 1, 1938 in Olomouc into a mixed family of Štefan and Marie Bodinkovi. Her German father had to enlist in the Wehrmacht and was shot in May 1945. Despite her mother being Czech, she was treated as a German after the war. Štěpánka, her mother and sisters were held prisoners in an internment camp for Germans where they lived in inhumane conditions. The witness doesn’t remember the location of the camp anymore. They were eventually released from the camp and walked over a hundred kilometers back to Olomouc by foot. They found their apartment with all their belongings sealed and were allotted just one empty room. They survived these tough times thanks to the selfless help of several people and of the oldest sister who provided for the family. In the end, Štěpánka, her mother and her sisters were allowed to stay in Czechoslovakia but their brother Ludvík was displaced to Germany together with his wife and three-months-old daughter. Štěpánka finished secondary school and started working at the age of fifteen. She married Miroslav Hudáček, a soldier, and together they had three sons. She travelled to see her brothers in West Germany in 1968 for the first time. In August, the Warsaw Pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia and her husband was held in barracks for more than a month. Her son Miroslav emigrated to Austria with his friends in 1979 and later found employment at her brother’s in Germany. Štěpánka used to visit them almost every year but her son could only visit Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Communist regime. Her chronically ill husband died in the 1990s and Štěpánka then married Karel Jarůšek.
Štěpánka Jarůšková (second from the left) and brother Ervin Bodinek (next to her) visiting their brother Jan Bodinek (second from the right) in West Germany
Štěpánka Jarůšková (second from the left) and brother Ervin Bodinek (next to her) visiting their brother Jan Bodinek (second from the right) in West Germany
Štěpánka Jarůšková - third from the right, left of her is Hana, her younger sister, and her mother Marie; above them Jan Bodinek who came to visit them from Germany
Štěpánka Jarůšková - third from the right, left of her is Hana, her younger sister, and her mother Marie; above them Jan Bodinek who came to visit them from Germany
