Sylva Knedlová

“We were practicing in blue shorts, blue blouses bordered by a white stripe and we had such white rings. I still remember the song to this day. And we went through Prague and called up slogans. Unfortunately, we came back, we were full of enthusiasm and the Oxner girls had problems. Because they let us invoke some anti-state slogans. We didn't even think of it. We are delighted that people are watching us there, so we called what we learned here. And they took it as an anti-state activity. The Oxner girls were not allowed to practice at all, and the Meetings were then banned. And another, not a rally, but the big Spartakiad was in the 1950s. And until 1990, I practiced all the Spartakiads not only in schools, but I went around the districts, the county, and the republic to fix the various mistakes. I was also in charge of various entrances in Prague: 14,824 exercisers in Strahov, and we also had to take care of the South Moravian Region, because I was the regional chief and district chief in the district, then, in Gottwaldov. And I was also responsible for the regional and district Spartakiads. And to this day, no one would convince me that we have made these Spartakiads as a theater only for Husak or someone else.”

“But best of all, we always got some shoes. And my mother said, 'You have to save those. You can't run in them; that´s what the old ones are for! But the boss [Tomas Bata] said: 'No, Marenko, they'll be in these shoes we just gave them, and they are going to fly, dig, climb the fences to see how long they last. To know how firm our workers are to make shoes for children. And how important are the tops or bottoms.‘ Well, you know that we as children were in heaven, because the other children envied us and we could do everything in those shoes. Since then it was recorded that we have all been racing and doing sports because we could afford it with these shoes.”

“They were all collecting the Jews at the time. But because it was said somehow, so my brother, or both brothers and dad, helped diging a hole. We had it in our garden. And we had a shed in that pit, a box. It was all covered with paper, waterproof or airtight, and there we had stored supplies. There were few of them, but we always brought something in a baby carriage to avoid being caught by the Germans. And next to us (across the garden) at the Czech gendarme, we did the same, but of a larger kind, in the garden of Blažka. Which she did not know at all because she went to school. And her parents had gone there and lived all day, only going out at night to breathe in the fresh air. And there was a butcher named Mr. Hamada. He killed the Germans pigs. Of course, he had to make them feel good and cook all those goodies. And they wanted him to pour soup into the canal. But Mr. Hamada never had much time, he was busy waiting for them to always leave. And in the evening with my brother, who was four years older and wanted to be a cook and helped Mr. Hamada, they always delivered the soup not only to us, because we were so many children and ours put it in the cellar. Then we got it with bread or potatoes, or it was crushed, so we ate it with onions, but without meat - just the soup, we called it the crushings. And they also carried it to Blažek's parents and they ate properly. Even Blaženka had eaten this hearty soup, and thanks to this we overcame the war and were not as malnourished as the other children.”