“We had a new house, they came and opened the door – with a picklock – and they moved us out of our own house. They arrived with a truck and began moving us. From our own house – that’s something terrible.” “They started taking the furniture and moving us immediately. I think we were not even at home.” “My mom told me to go to Drnholec, that if I was not at home, they would not move us. But I was in Drnholec on the market square, a car arrived and stopped, I had to get in and they drove me home.” “They opened the door for themselves. We haven’t packed anything, because we didn’t know anything in advance. We didn’t want to leave.” “On the train Marie started bleeding from her nose.” “How long was the journey?” “I don’t remember anymore.” “We rode at night, too.” “We arrived to Dětřichov near Moravský Beroun, then they loaded us onto trucks and drove us to Huzová. There are no trains to Huzová, it’s up in the hills.” “The wife of our son Erich was standing there in from of the town hall, she was a young girl then. She came to me and embraced me!” “She was so happy that other Croats arrived.”
“Then I was going to school to Drnholec by bike. There was some state-owned factory on the market square near the school. A boy, about ten years older, was always standing in front of it and shouting at me: ´Pemin, Pemin!´ (´Czech!´) One day it happened again and I approached him on the bike and kicked him. And he left me alone. I defended myself.” “The people from Drnholec were saying that we were stupid Croats. But who was actually stupid? We could speak three languages, Czech, German and Croatian, and they spoke only German. So who was stupid then?”
“When the StB was taking him away, daddy looked at me and said: ´It’s over with your studying.´ I looked at him and said: ´We will see yet!´ And I managed it.”
Emilie Šalamonová was born in 1928 in Croatian village Frélichov (present-day Jevišovka) in southern Moravia. Her father was a local policeman and the family often had to move due to his job, but Emilie spent the largest portion of her childhood in Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou and in Frélichov. She was active in Sokol and she attended a Czech school in Šanov; after the occupation she moved with her mother and sister to Frélichov and continued in a German school there and in Drnholec. All the time throughout the war the family kept their Czechoslovak (Protectorate) citizenship. Thanks to her aptitude she advanced to grammar school in Znojmo, from which she graduated in 1948. Her father Josef Šalamun was arrested in this year because he became inconvenient for the regime due to his activities for the Moravian Croats. In spite of the difficulties Emilie Šalamunová succeeded in completing her studies of medicine at the university in Brno, and following her graduation she was assigned to work in Slovakia. She managed to return to Moravia 12 years later when she began working in a hospital in Vsetín and later in Olomouc. The awareness of her Croatian origins and the language continue to plaied an important part in her life. She died on January 5, 2017.
