Marta Zelenková

* 1923

  • "My father was one of the founders of scouting in Pilsen. Then he moved to Prague and here, even before he got married, he led the 23rd boys' squad. Then he was a leading member of scouting and participated in the founding of the first old scout club. It was called 'Friends of the Fire'. Thanks to the fact that in 1936 the old scout group organized a trip to Romania and Turkey; I became a member of the old scout club. My mom was also a member. In Mamaia, where we camped in Romania, the 2nd girls' squad also stayed. I got to know them there, and then in the fall of 1936 I joined the 2nd girls' division."

  • “Children participated unconsciously much more in the lives and problems of their parents than today. They perceived and experienced life more truly, one could say. One sign of poverty were beggars. They were beggars who came regularly. I remember one university student who used to come to us in 1932 and 1933. Mother sometimes didn't give a five-halter or a ten-halter, but a plate of soup and a piece of bread when they sat on the doorstep. In addition, there were singers, and we children quite liked them.”

  • "I was a member of the Red Cross and took first aid courses in preparation for the war. But I confess that I was terribly afraid of the war. The first horror fell on me already in 1937, when we went to the jamboree in Holland via Germany. We drove at night. It looked terrible to me, there were swastikas everywhere. When it was Munich, I was terrified of the war outbreak. I was fifteen years old. The fact that there would be no war was a relief for me as a child. But that only lasted until March 1939."

  • "The president's wife Svobodová was present, when the foundation stone was laid. We also got free plans and within two years the village started functioning. Mothers and aunts were chosen among predominantly religious women, Catholics and Evangelicals. Unfortunately, we know how everything turned out after August 1968. Within two years, our association was liquidated and the second, under-construction village near Brno came under the control of the Ministry of Education and the state administration."

  • „On September 1, 1939, the Gestapo came to arrest him as an employee of the Legiobank and as a former French legionnaire and social democrat." - "What did they arrest him for?" - "Because he was among the so-called hostages. This happened to scouts, falcons, legionnaires. They were not yet political prisoners. They were also relatively a little better off if they endured the six years of imprisonment. It was worse for people detained during the heydrichades - they were already political prisoners. But these detainees were said to be hostages. There was no personal charge against them.“

  • "I got involved when the reorganization of children's homes began thanks to progressive pediatricians and child psychologists such as associate professor Dunovský, professor Matějček, Langmeier and a number of directors of children's homes who realized that the way the institutions were run was not good. There was an effort to convert it to a system of family groups. At the same time, there was an effort to establish SOS children's villages here, following the example of Austria. This was achieved thanks to enthusiasm in the spring of 1968. The Ministry of the Interior authorized the association of SOS children's villages. We had great support from radio and television. There was a wave of unprecedented charity and we raised a lot of money. So the SOS children's village began to be built; the first one was created in Dubí near Karlovy Vary."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 22.03.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 01:57:27
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha, 02.05.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 54:29
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the 20th Century TV
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The SOS children‘s villages were destroyed by the communists after the occupation in 1968

retro portrait
retro portrait
zdroj: archiv Pamětníka

Marta Zelenková, née Ledvinová, was born on May 14, 1923 in Prague and grew up as an only child. Father Antonín Ledvina supported the family as a manufacturer of bandages and orthopedic aids. She grew up in a poor house in Štefánikova street, later the family moved to Podolí. They were active in Scouting, the witness joining the 2nd Girls‘ Troop in 1936. The following year she participated in the 5th World Scout Jamboree in Holland and maintained contact with many of the participants through correspondence throughout her life. In the years 1935-1942 she studied at the real gymnasium in Vodičková Street. Because the universities were closed, she completed a two-year health and social school and in 1944 joined the anti-tuberculosis clinic. She remembers the Jewish scout Zuzu Hofmann, who perished in Auschwitz, her uncle Josef Kápar, who survived six years of imprisonment in Buchenwald and Dachau, as well as the bombing of Prague in February 1945. From October 1945 to 1968, she worked as an ordinary clerk at the Ministry of Health in department of care for women and children and was involved in the establishment of SOS children‘s villages. The managing association disappeared for political reasons two years after the arrival of the occupiers, and Marta Zelenková then joined the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, where she worked until her retirement in the Department of Family and Child Welfare. She was never a member of the Communist Party of the Czech Republic and was not involved in politics; during her life she made short visits to France, Norway and the USA. After the last trip, the state police offered her cooperation, but she refused. She lived in a childless marriage from 1949, in the 1960s she took twelve-year-old Lída into foster care from a children‘s home.