When times are hard, you learn to appreciate good people
Elly Jouzová was born as Elly Baranová on 2nd July 1933 in Prague. Both parents were active, loyal members of the pre-war Communist Party. Her father Kurt Baran came from a Jewish family, her mother Marie was born to Czech parents in Vienna.They shared the mutual selfless work for the Party. Elly was eight years younger than her sister Vlasta and during the war she was only a child. After both parents had been arrested on the grounds of their resistance activities against the Nazis, the sisters were looked after their maternal grandmother. Towards the end of the war, Vlasta was also arrested for the same reason. Elly´s father and sister Vlasta were killed in the concentration camps. Her mother survived. After the war, she continued working for the Party: she experienced fear and doubts in the time of the political trials of the 1950s, and became enthusiastic about the 1960s liberal atmosphere. In the 1970s, after 45 years of being a Communist, Elly´s mother was expelled from the Party. Elly never joined.