My parents did not regret leaving Volyn, nor did they ever want me to go there for a visit
Stáhnout obrázek
Jiřina Svobodová was born on 1 January 1937 in the village of Mirotín in the western part of Volhynia, which at that time was part of Poland. Her parents, Cecilia and Konstantin Martinek, farmed a vast land and also employed the workers. Jiřina grew up as an only child and, unlike other children at that time, was surrounded by plentitude. During the war years, the family had to face raids by marauding nationalists. Moreover, in the spring of 1944, her mother was left alone with the entire farm, as her father, Konstantin, had enlisted in the First Czechoslovak Army. He experienced the fighting at Dukla and participated in the liberation of Czechoslovakia. In the autumn of 1946 (perhaps as early as 1945), little Jiřina followed him to the homeland with her mother and grandparents. The illegal journey by freight cars took them two weeks. They were reunited with her father in Žatec and lived in the villa left by the displaced Germans. Shortly afterwards, they moved to the nearby village of Velemyšleves, where her father had acquired a share of a large castle estate. As he refused to cede his share to the state estate, he sold his share and they returned to Žatec. Due to the poor cadre profile of her parents, Jiřina could not enter the Prague Conservatory. After secondary industrial school in Žatec she worked for many years as a warehouse manager. She lived in Teplice. In November 1989, her son Milan Tajnert took part in the ecological demonstrations that became a precursor of the Velvet Revolution. In 2021, she lived in her cottage in Okrouhla in the Českolipsko region.