Our hotel was my parents’ whole life. Then the communists took it away
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Věra Blažková was born into the Forch family of tradesmen in Letohrad (then Kyšperk) on 3 August 1919. Her father ran a restaurant on the square until 1929 and later a hotel near the railway station, which is still called U Forchů. Her happy childhood was disturbed by the untimely death of her father in 1933. From then on, her mother ran the hotel herself, with the help of her daughter and staff. After completing municipal school, Věra spent one year in a school for girls run by the Order of the Ursulines in Jeseník (then Frývaldov). She wanted to study at the teachers’ institute, but her mother needed her help in the hotel. In 1938 she married a teacher, Jiří Blažek from Letohrad. During the Protectorate she was officially listed as an agricultural worker on a farm in Lukavice to avoid forced labour. In 1943, a son, Václav, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Blažek, and three years later a son, Jiří. After the communists came to power in 1948, the Hotel U Forchů first lost all its staff and mother and Vera did all the work themselves. At the beginning of the 1950s it was nationalized in favour of the Czechoslovak Railways. After her mother’s death in 1957, Věra started working, first as a saleswoman in a hardware store and then as a cashier at the station. Both sons had problems getting into university because of their trade backgrounds, but Václav eventually studied engineering and Jiří economics. Son Václav died tragically in a car accident when he was an adult.
