Instead of celebrating the end of the war, the bombing began in Mělník
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Slávka Chlumská was born on February 6, 1936 in Uzhhorod in Slovakia - today’s Subcarpathian Rus. Her parents were Czech, but in the 1920s they moved to Trebišov, Slovakia, where the witness’s father got a job. When Slávka Chlumská was five years old, her father died prematurely. It was at a time when Czechoslovakia was occupied by German troops, so it was difficult for him and his mother and brother to get into the protectorate. In the end, they succeeded and stayed in Mělník, their mother’s hometown. There they lived through the entire war, during which Slávka Chlumská attended a public school. When the war ended in May 1945, the inhabitants of Mělník gathered in the square, where they were waiting for the liberation troops. Instead of celebrations came the attack of military planes that bombed Mělník. After the war, she joined Sokol, graduated from grammar school and graduated in 1954. She started working as an accountant. She got married in 1960, her husband soon fell ill and died shortly after. She spent most of her life in Mělník, where she also lived at the time of filming in 2022.
