Totality was not caused by the Russians, it was caused by our people. They wanted to have a good time, so they joined the party. Unfortunately, the reporting was done by our people and it was not good.
"Dad got married for a second time. They met while I was in the refuge. I called her aunt, but later I called her mom. Then they got married. My second mother was imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp for four years. She was married in Valašské Meziříčí for about nine years. They had no children, and some neighbor reported them that they had been listening to foreign radio and that they might have had a weapon hidden at home. In September 1941, the Gestapo took them away, and her husband died in Mauthausen sometime in December. My mother said that he was an athlete. He was supposedly beaten up. Well, she spent four years in that Ravensbrück, then she came back and met my father."
"The following two years, after which I had to be in a refuge, were also quite terrible. My father had nowhere to put me. Grandma was no longer well and my father was an only child, he had no other relatives. So, I was in a refuge for a whole week. On Friday he came for me in the evening and handed me over there again on Sunday afternoon. I also have a photo of it. There were about thirty or forty of us children there, orphans and semi-orphans. We were very sad there, the nuns took care of us. We had to sit in desks, arms outstretched in front of us, which was quite cruel for those little children. Nobody cared much about us. The dirt was there. We were covered in lice. My father always de-liced me on a Friday and it was all over again the next week. There was no soap in those days, just after the war, there weren't many things available. My father was even angry with the nuns, saying that they shouldn't pray so much, but that they should take care of the children more. When I went to school, he took me in and it was good."
Monika Lamparterová, née Šafářová, was born on July 21, 1941 in Brno. Together with her mother Elfrida Šafářová, who had German citizenship, she joined the so-called Brno death march in May 1945 as a four-year-old. At Modřice, her mother was shot dead by the guards. Little Monika was then found crying by the dead body by a coachman. He handed her over to the nuns in the former orphanage on Vídeňská Street in Brno, where her father Bohumil Šafář later found her. Monika has completely repressed the memories of the trauma she experienced and only knows the whole story from the narration. Her father then remarried. Her second mother, Marie Šafářová, originally Krausová, spent four years in the Ravensbrück concentration camp during the war, where she was sent with her husband because she was accused of listening to foreign radio. The fear and anxiety that the whole family felt after the post-war events influenced her character.
Monika Lamparterová as a child with her mother Elfrída, née. Safarova. Together with her, the witness joined the so-called Brno death march in May 1945. Her mother was shot right before her eyes near Modřice, 1943
Monika Lamparterová as a child with her mother Elfrída, née. Safarova. Together with her, the witness joined the so-called Brno death march in May 1945. Her mother was shot right before her eyes near Modřice, 1943
A joint photo of children from the former refuge for orphans and semi-orphans in Vídeňská street in Brno, where Monika Lamparterová stayed as a child from 1945 to 1947
A joint photo of children from the former refuge for orphans and semi-orphans in Vídeňská street in Brno, where Monika Lamparterová stayed as a child from 1945 to 1947
