Anna Straková

A. S.: “The German persecution began. My brother was involved in the underground movement and the Gestapo came to arrest him. The Gestapo took my father and my other brother to the prison in Pilsen, and my brother Václav managed to escape. I had two brothers: Antonín and Vladimír. The Gestapo members searched our farm and we had to stay separated, men and women. Václav was not at home at that time, and so they searched our entire house and everything, and they took my dad and brother away, and two Gestapo men remained in the house with us. They locked themselves in one room, and my mom and I slept in the other.” Interviewer: “And where did your brother go?” A. S.: “He escaped to the forest and he spent the following two days in a ravine there, he covered himself with grass, and then he went to the Hošek’s family. During the time the Gestapo men were in our house, my mom ran away from our room two times in order to let Václav know that the Gestapo was in our house if he tried to come back. I went out once myself during that time. They were looking for photographs and documents. I found them, and therefore at night I took the stuff with me and hid it under the elderberry bush behind our barn.”

Interviewer: “You owned twelve hectares of land…” A. S.: “We had about twelve hectares. They labelled my husband as kulak. When he returned from prison, they ordered him to go to work to the Škoda factory as a non-skilled worker, so that he wouldn’t corrupt the morals of the village people.” Interviewer: “And who was then working on the farm here?” A. S.: “I was here with our children.” Interviewer: “And for how long they sent him there?” A. S.: “Well, indefinitely.” Her son: “He retired afterwards.” A. S.: “I don’t remember it exactly, I think he was there for two or three years. He stayed with some friend of his there, and he was coming to visit us on Saturdays and Sundays.” Interviewer: “The weekends must have been good times for you then.” The son: “The Unified Agricultural Cooperatives have already taken our fields at that time.” A. S.: “The cooperative has taken your father’s property, the fields that belonged to him.” Interviewer: “And did you join the cooperative or not?” A. S.: “It was only me who joined, but I don’t remember when it was.” The son: “Probably in 1959 or 1960.” A. S.: “Before we joined the cooperative, we had leased out some of the fields, and therefore we eventually owned only a hectare or so. We leased out those fields for free, and in exchange the leaseholders were paying for them in grain which we would otherwise be supposed to deliver. I’m talking about the required delivery quotas imposed upon us.” Interviewer: “You mean it wasn’t you who was delivering it, but it was done through the leaseholders of your fields.” A. S.: “The leaseholders made sure that the required quotas were delivered from those fields. But meanwhile we were fined anyway, and our property was auctioned. It was a shameless thing.”

A. S.: “The people who had been with him in the underground movement were communists, and they strove to establish the Unified Agricultural Cooperative here at all costs. They formed a small cooperative at first, but that was not enough for them, and therefore they launched big campaigns aiming to get people to join. And since František didn’t want to, they imprisoned him for one year.” Interviewer: “When was it?” The son: “In 1955. 1954.” A. S.: “It was in 1954, you were four years old and Petr was six. He spent a year there.” Interviewer: “And where was he detained?” A. S.: “At first he was in prison for half a year, it was called Gestapo…” Interviewer: “In Pilsen-Bory.” A.S.: “No, he wasn’t in Bory. It was called StB State Security something… A trial was held half a year later and he was sentenced for not having turned in his friend for the possession of firearms, for having failed to report a criminal activity...” The son: “That friend of his actually only had a gun.” Interviewer: “And who was this friend?” A. S.: “His name was Drábský (?). He worked as an accountant in a savings bank.” (…) Interviewer: “When the court sentenced him to one year in prison, did he spent the entire year there, or did they take into account his detention when he had been awaiting the trial?” A. S.: “No, they didn’t. He had to spend the entire year in prison, and his friend was sentenced to two years.” The son: “But he was released in the middle of his term.” A. S.: “Well, he was, but your dad wasn’t.” Interviewer: “Your husband then served a longer term than he?” A. S.: “They spent the same time in prison. He was to be released on 15th February, and at the end of January our grandma died, she was eighty-two and she had a serious case of asthma and heart problems. She died and my brother Vladimír obtained a doctor’s statement and some confirmation letter from the village council, and he went to the Office of the Chief Prosecutor in Prague to request permission to allow him to come to the funeral.” Interviewer: “And what happened?” A. S.: “Well, my brother submitted the request and they told him to come back in two hours. He was waiting in the hallway and then they told him that it was not advisable to allow František to attend the funeral, and that he ought to take care of the inheritance once he was out of the prison.”

A. S.: “When my father and brother were imprisoned by the Gestapo, the wives of prisoners were allowed to bring them clothes and some food every week, like a piece of lard or a meatloaf, or some food to make it easier for them. Plus a packet of cigarettes for the Gestapo member who would deliver the things to them. My mom just left for the Gestapo office in Pilsen to bring some food and clothes to our father and brother, and I stayed at home with my sister, who was fifteen at that time. I was eighteen. A bus full of inspectors arrived to our house. Mr. Pacák came to us and told us: ´Girls, please cook a lunch for us and you don’t need to fear the inspection at all.´ We didn’t have any meat and so we went to get some from the neighbours. We knew that they were having illegal pig slaughters. They gave us a pan full of meat, and we roasted it and we cooked dumplings; we prepared two loads of them since it was for so many people. My sister cooked potato soup and I cooked the dumplings for the inspectors.” Interviewer: “How many of them arrived, twenty or so?” A. S.: “There could be about twenty of them. We cooked the lunch, and we also prepared some sweet potato dumplings with poppy seed, I still remember this, and we still weren’t even finished with cooking when a car with three Gestapo men and a driver arrived to join these inspectors. Everyone took care of his own house. For instance, one granny gathered all her hens, put them into a sack and hid them in thornbush behind the village.” Interviewer: “She did it so that they wouldn’t be able to check how many she had, right?” A.S.: “This policeman, Mr. Pacák, had told us to cook the lunch and not to worry about anything. He said that everything would be all right. Máňa and I were therefore cooking the lunch and not paying attention to anything else, and meanwhile the inspectors were walking through the village and checking everything. The policeman Pacák and one more guy were also going from house to house and looking for grain and what not. They found the hens, and so they stepped into the nearest house and told the people there: ´See, somebody has hidden his hens there, take them out to the yard whether they are yours or not, and release them there. We don’t want to get into trouble for that.´ He was helping the people this way. It was the time for lunch, and the Gestapo men came there. What were we to do with them? Mr. Pacák said: ´Girls, give them something to eat so that they don’t bother us.´ And so the Gestapo had lunch in our house. I could have even been imprisoned, just like it happened to the main character in that movie I Served the King of England, who also cooked for the Gestapo!”