Anna Vyoralová

* 1938

  • "We had a wonderful childhood in the beginning. Until the communists took over and nationalization began. At first, they let my father work as a manager in the workshop, but then what happened was that they came for him and locked him up. My mother was shocked and back then it wasn't like today. Nowadays you can't even let a child play in front of the house when they are small, but at that time my sister and I were alone in Káraný, my brothers were older and they were elsewhere, but we were in Káraný and we heated the food that my mother cooked for us. And suddenly there were gentlemen there, they were in civilian clothes, but it was just the police. We were about eleven years old, and we were completely shocked. They searched the whole house and the garden. Then one of the men went into the cellar and started to shovel coal. Fortunately, he didn't finished it. But they also went to Nechanice, and actually it was only then that we learned that they were looking for so-called hidden property. Indeed, in Nechanice, in the attic, in chests, they found ironworks, like window handles, door locks, just what the construction locksmiths did. [...] My sister and I didn't know what to do, so we got up, locked the door after they had left and decided to walk to Prague. And in Stará Boleslav, just as we were crossing the bridge between Brandýs and Stará Boleslav, we saw my father and mother, and luckily they saw us too and came to get us. Dad was arrested just then because they discovered some ironworks in Nechanice."

  • "My daddy then, after he had retired because he didn't want to work there anymore, his pension was very low, but he was a broken man and he didn't want to work there anymore. And one day a worker met him and he said: 'Well, Mr. Hatle, we don't sing in the shop anymore like we used to. It's completely different, we don't sing anymore.' They claimed that the tradesmen were exploiting people, but that wasn't true, it was like a family. We used to call the oldest blacksmith grandpa Frolík when we were kids. I don't even know what his first name was, but to us he was grandpa Frolík. And he was the most skilled blacksmith with a huge reputation. And he was terribly old, but I still remember him, when my husband and I lived on Křížíkova Street, I met him once, and he used to go regularly, he must have lived somewhere in Karlín too, with a little can for milk. [...] But then he was deaf, he was hit by a car and died. But he lived to a relatively old age."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Lázně Toušeň, 12.08.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 02:05:53
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Our blacksmith shop was like a family

Anna Vyoralová in her youth
Anna Vyoralová in her youth
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Anna Vyoralová, née Hatlová, was born on 1 October 1938 in Prague. She spent her childhood with her parents and three siblings in Prague and Káraný. Their father, Jan Hatle, owned an artist blacksmith shop and construction locksmith shop, which was nationalized after February 1948. Jan Hatle was also briefly imprisoned. After finishing primary school, the witness was not recommended for high school for political reasons. She completed a one-year apprenticeship course and started working as an administrative assistant. After her marriage and the birth of her daughter, she graduated from the secondary school of economics by distance learning. In 1966 and 1969, her older brothers emigrated to Germany. The witness and her husband then faced persecution at work. After 1989, the family regained the artist blacksmith shop and construction locksmith business in restitution. In 2021, Anna Vyoralová was living in Lázně Toušeň.