Fear is ingrained in our generation
Ludmila Surá, née Krajčová, was born on February 12, 1930 in Uherský Brod to Anastázia Krajčová, née Mizerová, and Jaroslav Krajča, as the second of four children. Her father was an electrician and her mother helped the farmers in the fields. In 1938, her father was called up as part of the mobilization, but the war did not take place and he returned home in a few days. In 1936, Ludmila started going to a general school, then to a middle school. From 1936, she also attended the local Sokol. She was in the third grade when the war started. In 1942, after the assassination of Heydrich, her father was detained for his resemblance to one of the assassins, but was released after a few days. They spent the end of the war with their family in Velký Ořechov. Here she experienced the bombing in the last days of the war and the liberation. In 1944, she went to apprenticeship, trained as a seamstress with Miss Pražanová in Uherský Brod. In the years 1948–1951, she worked as a seamstress, first for the foreman Pančocha, who sewed women‘s clothing, and later, after the nationalization of trades, for the municipality. At the age of nineteen, she started dating Jaroslav Surý, they got married and had three children. In 1959, she returned to the same job, where she worked until her retirement. The husband was a professional soldier, later they got divorced. In 2022, at the time of filming, the witness lived in Uherský Brod.