"A lot of Germans remained in Krupka, which was good for us because we learned German. I couldn't speak German at school because it was inappropriate, my parents were afraid. So I spoke German first and then Czech, and I don't remember it causing me any problems. When I went to kindergarten, I switched automatically, I learned fast. So there were a lot of Germans. The population was mixed. I don't remember that there were only Germans somewhere and only Czechs in. It was so really mi certain places. Lots of mixed marriages. Then as the people got older, because they are two generations older than me, they became extinct. Or those who remained and stayed in Krupka, and their children did not return from the war and remained in Germany, so they moved out in the 1960s. Only a few families actually emigrated."
"So the normalization and strengthening of the regime did not affect you?" - "It did not affect me personally. I started working at geodesy in Teplice. And because I didn't go from place to place, when they handed out our materials to us after the revolution, I learned what they wrote there when there were inspections. It wasn't like the 1950s, it certainly wasn't. And I said that I did not agree with the entry of the troops and they tried to persuade me otherwise. That they couldn't write it there and that it would mark my life significantly. So, they wrapped it up so nicely in the sense that I was overwhelmed, but then that they explained it to me. Well, at the age of twenty, I 'understood' it. But I never really understood. It's always been a harm to me. Great damage, and I hated them."
"Officers. When the officers brought their families, they also had a Soviet school in Krupka. And they were not one family staying in 3+1 apartment. There were three families and they shared a kitchen. Even if the hygienist did not agree, they still did as they liked." - "Did those families live in Krupka?" - "Indeed, they had blocks of flats and when they built another one for them so that the commander had them living all together, we went to work once, and work started - the cores and all that was thrown out, and when we went from work, it was already tidy. So, it was not the Soviets that did it, but the construction company in Krupka, and it went fast. So that people did not see how they lived." - "How did you live with them there?" - "I didn't come into much contact with them, but it bothered me the whole time. They lived beyond their means. For example, they received vouchers and went shopping in Tuzex. It's always been a harm to me."
"Was it a demonstration for ecology then, or were there voices against politics?" - "I don't remember that, but ecology was crucial for us. You really couldn't breathe there anymore. When the hygiene station declared a higher grade, the children went up to the height of Komáří to breathe fresh air. When you were standing up there, the valley was full of fog, but it wasn't just fog, it was smog. The kind of terrible smog."
"Then it culminated so much that people went out in the streets. On November 13, it culminated in a large demonstration, where blood was spilt." - "Did you take part in the demonstration?" - "It was Monday, it was office hours at the housing company, so we just saw it. I didn't attend it because it was my daughter´s birthday on November 13th, so the headmistress let me go home earlier, so I probably escaped the pressure and beatings in the passage. But I saw with my own eyes that the people came from factories and offices and along the main street of Masaryk, which was full of people carrying flags and banners. It was at two or three o'clock. And the people were still flowing in from the whole district, they came on foot. The evening then culminated between 5 pm and 6 pm. Apparently there were some speeches on Benešov Square. Then the auxiliary guard and the police began beating people up."
"The first exhalations began in the 1950s and were pointed out by old foresters and those who lived in the wild. Nobody paid attention to it. Energy was the foremost for the state. My opinion is that they threw us in and let us do what we could. Then we got 'funeral fee' of two thousand crowns per year." - "Funeral fee?" - "Yes, that's what we called it. It was a money benefit for the holidays and we called it 'funeral fee'. This culminated when Munich Television filmed a show where it was admitted, but only for the West, that children were born without any fingers, with a heart disfunction, and so on. So that was a big buzz. Then we really couldn't breathe anymore. I remember because I worked in Teplice, that there was public transport in Teplice with yellow flags when it was impossible to breathe. And you could read what you were breathing in almost every shop window. We don't know what we're breathing in today."
Daniela Remenárová, née Veselá, was born on April 10, 1950 in Krupka on the North Bohemian border. She has Austrian ancestry on her mother‘s side. Her grandmother Sofie Landová lived in Litvínov and was not evicted after the war due to her marriage to a Czech. However, the Landas lost their property and had to move out of the apartment. After the Second World War, they found housing in Krupka, where Daniela‘s mother Inge met her husband. Daniela recalls the 1950s in Krupka, when many German-Czech families lived there. From 1966 to 1970 she studied secondary surveying industrial school in Prague. In 1968, she experienced the arrival of Soviet troops in Krupka, which for twenty years became the residence of Soviet officers and their families. Since 1970 she has been working in geodesy in Teplice, after a kindergarten in a housing company. On November 13, 1989, it witnessed a violently suppressed mass demonstration in Teplice, when residents from the entire district protested against unsustainable living conditions caused by harmful emissions from heavy industry.
