Anna Šlechtová

* 1935

  • "That's what he said to me: 'I'll give you a hand to make sure that you get the first restitution done when mother lives to see it, for her sake.' But she didn't want to go there with me. She told me: 'Give it a break, we'll stay here in the studio.' I had a studio in Polabiny, I had it from Semtín when my husband and I divorced. Well, she didn't want to go there. She said: 'You're taking such a worry.' And I told her: 'Mom, no, it's our home, for the sake of my father.' Because he believed to death that we would return one day. He always said: 'I won't see it again, but you will come back one day. And my first words when I came to the yard, I raised my head and I said: 'Dad, if you can hear me up there, we're back, but just me and mom.' These were my first words."

  • "So, I immediately looked for a job, but again it was not easy. I had a penalty all over, I was simply a Kulak, and they didn't want to hire me. So I found a job as a cleaner, it was the Youth Center in Dukla, but they said, you can't work there, you would disturb the morale of the youth, not at all, they didn't even want me as a cleaner. Well, then a few people from the village stood up for me, who worked there and who looked at us without animosity. What do you want from her? After all, she doesn't have anything anywhere, she won't do anything like that. So, they took me to Semtín and I went to the forest for a try, I was there for a year, how would I behave. You know, I didn't pay attention to anything, I was happy to have a job and to earn a few crowns."

  • "The prison again. He was building a leveling reservoir on the Křižanovická dam in Práčov. He wasn't afraid of heights, so he was building the scaffolding there. There they had such a concentration camp, were only these young people, Mr. Laštovička from the mill, farmers, simply the prisoners. So, we didn't know where he was for a long time, until then, three months later, he wrote to us that he was in Křižanovice and that we should request a visit. So we requested a visit. They allowed us to visit, so we went there by bus directly to that concentration camp. There was the warden next to us, the police officer and my dad. They brought dad, and the three of us sat there and the visit took a quarter of an hour. That was all, hands on the table, and we had to do that. Well, we said a few words, we just told each other how we were, what we were doing, a quarter of an hour passed, and they forced us to leave."

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    Hradec Králové, 14.10.2022

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They nationalized the farmers´ farm and evicted them to a cow house

Anna Šlechtová when she was 8 years old, 1943
Anna Šlechtová when she was 8 years old, 1943
zdroj: Archive of the witness

Anna Šlechtová was born on November 28, 1935 in Neratov u Lázní Bohdaneč. Her parents owned a rather large farm and already during the war they had to hand over mandatory supplies of food. In 1944, children watched the planes flying to bomb Pardubice and the bombing itself. After the liberation in May 1945, the soldiers of the Red Army settled in the forests near the village of Břehy, some in Neratov. The witnesses left many memories of their stay. After the victory of communism, the family farm was nationalized. The parents were convicted in a false trial for endangering the economic plan, i.e. for non-fulfilment of liquidation deliveries. Her mother was given probation and her father, Alois Macas, was jailed for ten months. As a prisoner, he worked on the construction of a dam in Křižanovice. The family had to continue to live in the farm part of a foreign farm and then they moved them to different region. Their return was unwanted. The witness was working since she was fifteen, and at first, her salary was the only income that supported the other family members. But after being fired from her job, she was rejected everywhere because she came from the family of the so-called village rich man. When she finally got a job as a cleaner, she was falsely accused of starting a fire in the company where she cleaned. Fortunately, she was proven innocent in the court. In the 1970s, she was offered to join the Communist Party, but she understandably refused. She visited the Soviet Union, where she saw with her own eyes the falsity of the propaganda about the achievements of communism. After the Velvet Revolution, her parents were rehabilitated and at least a part of the confiscated property was returned. In 2022, she lived in the family house in Břehy near Přelouč.