"Transporting Jews to concentration camps was terrible. We lived above the railwas and they jumped. It was low, they could jump. That's when they got there, and they didn't let anyone out. So Dad, if he went back from work once, or if he was already at home, I don't remember, but he came for me. He was waiting there for me. But then that stupid Adam, who was the chief for us Czechs, took us to look at the fire station. To go see something. And they lay there shot dead. Barefoot… It wasn't the legs, it was just hard skin, or whatever it was. There were about fifteen, sixteen of them, who were shot as they jumped off the rails tracks."
"There were German families in the villas in Senohraby. It was busy. The Germans walked barefoot in line and went to Benešov. So they chased it all back to Benešov again. That was when we were in Senohraby. And when it relaxed and they ordered that we could move at our own risk, we moved out of Senohraby. But everyone, not just us. So the families went back from there to Neveklov. In May the war was over and at the end of July we moved here. But there were no windows, no doors, nothing at all. But it was nice. People could help each other. There were heaps of materials, what was needed, stoves and whatever else. The furniture there was brought to the square and anyone in need took it. The UNRRA was there and they were giving cans for rations. That was nice. But then it was ugly again when the Communists overtook the power. They were worse than the Germans. They reported on each other, who had more, who had less, and began locking people up again. The Germans did not do as much as the Communists."
"The resettlement was in Čerčany, where the parents went. Nobody knew where we would move, where they would put us. The entire Sedlčany region, the entire Neveklov region, was evicted. That was a lot of people. It was unknown what happened to them. But it was easier for us because we had no property. Dad was an employee. But whoever was a farmer or a cottager, those who had something, had to leave everything behind. They just determined what to bring along and you had to leave the others here. When they liked a nice piece of furniture, they just took it. You could only take what they permitted. They let you take one car for heating, or poultry, or something small. There was one car for such shops and one for furniture. And that was all. And then we had to go to the resettlement and she said, you're going there. And when they took you there, they took you, and if they didn't, you had to go to the next house. So we got evicted to Senohraby. The times were cruel."
Jaroslava Řeháková, b. Škarvanová, was born on February 18, 1929 in Neveklov into the family of Marie and Václav Škarvanová. They lived in an apartment in the Neveklov agricultural cooperative, where their father worked, and their mother helped the farmers. Jaroslava had an older sister Maria. In 1944, the family was one of the last to be expelled from Neveklov, which the Nazis occupied due to the establishment of a training area for SS soldiers. For the last year before the liberation, they lived in a designated cottage in Senohraby. Jaroslava was learning to be a seamstress at that time. Having no right to a salary, she worked for the Germans in Hrušovany in the occupied Hotel Valencia in the administration room of military uniforms. She witnessed the escape of transported Jewish prisoners from trains on a railway line not far from their residence in Senohraby and saw them shot. In May 1945, she experienced the expulsion of German civilians from Senohraby. The family returned to Neveklov in June 1945. In 1949, Jaroslav married Jiří Řehák and two daughters were born to them. Although Jaroslava was a trained seamstress, she worked as a worker in the Java company for 35 years. At retirement age, she worked for another seven years as kitchen staff at the social care home in Tloskov.
Wedding of the Řeháks in 1949 in the Škarvan family's apartment in Neveklov (Jaroslava on the right, husband opposite, next to Jaroslava her sister Marie)
Wedding of the Řeháks in 1949 in the Škarvan family's apartment in Neveklov (Jaroslava on the right, husband opposite, next to Jaroslava her sister Marie)
