The daughter of a resistance fighter who managed to survive
Jaroslava Waňková, née Novobilská, was born in 1931 in the village of Štáblovice near Opava. Her father, Jaroslav Novobilský, was originally a worker, later working as a teacher and school principal. In 1938, the family had to flee Melč as relations between the Czechs and the Germans began to escalate. The family settled in Pňovice near Litovel. In 1941, the Gestapo arrested his father for revealing his resistance activities, and on May 7, 1942, Jaroslav Novobilský was executed in the Mauthausen concentration camp. After the war, the family moved to Opava, where Jaroslava graduated from high school, then went to university in Olomouc, but a year later moved to Prague to Charles University. There she met her future husband Walter Waňek - a German with Jewish roots, with whom she moved to Ústí nad Labem after her studies.