Iva Slapničková

* 1925

  • "I also wanted to tell you about my cousin. Her husband was in a company from Baťa in Zlín and they did various exhibitions abroad. He made one exhibition with a friend in Russia. He said - he was from Nymburk, he was married to my cousin - that when he got to the exhibition in Russia, which they were supposed to prepare, someone had a bunch of roses at the border and the customs officers were looking at one petal after another to make sure that nothing got into Russia that didn't belong there. They checked his bags in his room. And when he saw the terrible state of affairs in Russia, when he was making a show in Toronto, he stayed there, even though he was married. His wife Dáša, my cousin, and another colleague's wife went across the border. They were caught and put in jail in Budějovice or somewhere at the border. The cousin then concluded that they wanted [the other wife] to sign a cooperation agreement with State Security, and she probably signed it, because then they released her. And Dáša was taken to Pankrác."

  • "When I was six years old, we went to France - we were in Paris. There was an exhibition there in 1931, the Colonial Exhibition.The people who lived in the colonies were exhibiting things there - French people who had businesses there. The big colonial exhibition was in '31. I quite remember staying in a hotel and looking at the Eiffel Tower. We were visiting the Mokas - me, my sister, my cousin, my mum, my dad. We went by train then and we stayed for a month in the Biarritz Spa, by the sea. That was my first visit to the sea."

  • "Then the communists took over and started taking revenge on him. They tried to liquidate him. I remember two gentlemen came and said, 'You will sign for us that you will hand over everything you have in your shop to our state. And if you don't, you will go to Valdice and we will arrest you.' Like it happened to the businessman Hloušek. 'And you'll be there in Valdice.' Daddy signed it, he had to hand over all the property he had in the shop, and then they took it away."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Železný Brod, 11.01.2024

    (audio)
    délka: 02:06:22
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

After the communist coup, everything changed for us

Iva Slapničková during her medical studies
Iva Slapničková during her medical studies
zdroj: Witness´s archive

Iva Slapničková, née Klápšt‘ová, was born on 9 September 1925 in Železný Brod (part Brodec). Mum Marie Dubcová came from Tatobity and dad Antonín Klápště from the village of Dluhý. Together they had a daughter Dagmar, who was born on 20 September 1921 in Malá Skála. Her father had a successful business in glass jewellery until 1948, when the communists confiscated his business. Until then, thanks to her father‘s business, they used to travel, read literature and socialized with important personalities in the field of glassmaking and art. Her father was also at the beginnings of the glass school in Železný Brod. Everything changed after the communist coup. Under the new conditions, they became representatives of the so-called bourgeoisie, which fundamentally changed their social status and complicated their employment in the labour market. The witness graduated from an eight-year grammar school in Turnov, but did not finish her medical studies. In 1948 she married Ervín Slapnička, originally from Postoloprty. They raised their only son David together. Iva Slapničková worked for most of her life as a clerk or worker in Vápenka in Železný Brod, then in the Železný Brod Glass Company (ŽBS). She also earned part of her living working from home. Her son David graduated from the Turnov grammar school, then from the University of Economics in Prague, and after 1989, together with several partners, they took over the glass company in Těpeře as part of the privatisation process, where he is still the owner. She worked for her son‘s company until she was eighty-two years old. Still active and interested in public affairs, she was living in her family home in Železný Brod in 2024, at the time of the recording.