Libuše Fajkošová

* 1925

  • “At first it was Poland, the Polish borders were at Lučina, and then the Germans claimed it right up to the River Odra. His father received a Volkslist, otherwise they would’ve had to abandon their farm and family, they didn’t know where to move to, so they took it. And that meant the seventeen-year-old boy [i.e. Josef Fajkoš] had to go and join the army. Dad’s relative was a doctor, and he gave [the boy] two milk injections which caused him to have high temperatures. When that happened a third time, the German conscription doctor said: ‘Enough, or you’ll all go.’ So my husband had to join the army, but that was an anabasis, but because his conscription was delayed, he didn’t have to go to the Eastern Front - because the fellow citizens who ended up like that, they never came back from Russia.”

  • “The chairman of the national committee came from Hukvaldy and said: ‘We received a message from Žermanice that you’re an enemy of the state, that you’re dangerous; but we trust you, because we see you’re doing a good job and the administrator speaks highly of you. I was in Místek and the local broadcast was calling out: 'Josef Fajkoš, best worker of the state farm, helped fulfill the harvest quota and we have successfully completed the harvest.’ Such paradoxes. One time this, the next time that.”

  • "So we didn't have a thing. In the end, not even mentally... For instance that secretary and the party chairman woke us up one night, they started banging on the windows, they got in through the garden - and I heard this with my own ears: "You kulak, watch out, we can throw you out of here any time, or we can hang you from the closest tree." That’s what I heard.”

  • “Then when the English landed at Normandy, they hid - he and two or three Poles made an agreement, in a barn somewhere, and they joined the French partisans. Unfortunately, [the French] also didn’t have the means to get them to our army, which had formed meanwhile in England, so it took some time - they took them to London. There was a camp in London, and from the camp they were sent with the Czechoslovak army all the way to Dunkirk.”

  • “They even moved a family in there from Havířov, a homeless lot, and they made a nasty mess of it. We were afraid they’d tell on us. It was quite a young family, a miner he was, but they drank terribly, an alcoholic family. They didn’t do much work, and when Dad returned and they were still working there, they would make a fire for themselves in the barn and roast sausages. So [Dad] was afraid that if it burned down, they’d lock him up again. It wasn’t easy.”

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    Frýdek-Místek, 15.10.2011

    (audio)
    duration: 54:43
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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You kulak, watch out, we can throw you out of here any time.

svatební fotografie Josef a Libuše Fajkošovi.JPG (historic)
Libuše Fajkošová
photo: archív pamětníka a foto Petr Zemánek

Libuše Fajkošová was born on the 6th of August 1925 into the family of a Russian legionnaire in Těšice near Nezamyslice in the Moravian region of Hané. After graduating from grammar school in Prostějov, she studied at a faculty of education and then began working as a primary school teacher in the Českolipsko area. In 1948 she married Josef Fajkoš, a former member of the Czechoslovak army in England, where he had fled after deserting from forced service in the Wehrmacht. She moved in with her husband at the Fajkoš family farm in Žermanice, near Horní Bludovice in the Frýdek-Místek district. In 1948, Mrs Fajkošová’s father-in-law was accused of anti-state activity as a kulak, he was jailed in Mírov and Šumperk. During his imprisonment the farm was tended to by Mrs Fajkošová and her husband. Josef Fajkoš was, as a member of the western army in England, declared an enemy of the state, and in 1951 the Fajkoš family was expelled from the farm. They found work in the state farm in Hukvaldy, where they lived seven years. The family farm was demolished during the construction of the Žermanice Reservoir. Josef Fajkoš’s parents were moved to the village of Lučina, where they were later joined by Libuše Fajkošová and her husband. Mrs Fajkošová worked as a teacher in Lučina, later in Lipina, and finally in Frýdek-Místek. Josef Fajkoš worked on a state farm, later as a driver. Towards the end of his life, Mr Fajkoš managed to attain the restitution of his family property and the rehabilitation of himself and his father.