Helena Divoká

* 1934

  • “It was just next to the barbed wire, and it was our territory still behind that wire, and there was this pond. And as they started harvesting the fist, there were soldiers all around, the gates were open, they would let fish in, and there were soldiers all around, one meter distance between them, so they would surround the pond. So no one would leave for Austria.”

  • “Do you remember the elections after the Second World War, in 1946? Did your parents comment on that somehow?” - “I don't know. I can remember some things, but just... I knew there were two sets of ballots. And one of them was just blank. And of course, my father didn't want to support their candidates, so they would cast those blank ballots I suppose. And later, it showed up, that those ballots had those numbers pressed in them. So they could find out anyone who had casted a blank ballot. This blank ballot is part of the municipal chronicle I would say. I don't know. It is or it is not?”

  • “It was May the 10th when we saw this Russian soldier for the first time. He came on a bike, well he took this bike away from someone, that's for sure. He came on a bike, well it was just... All the people from the village would just surround him. And my father, he just wanted to know how kolkhozes were organised. As he was afraid that it would come to the same result in our country. And in the end there was this Agricultural Coop, well there was no Coop in our village, we had been a part of the State Farm.”

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    Hranice u Nových Hradů, 16.12.2020

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Comrades wanted their fields to be vast

Helena Divoká, the 1950s
Helena Divoká, the 1950s
photo: Archiv pamětníka

elena Divoká, née Tikalská, was born on May 2, 1934 in Hranice near Nové Hrady, about five kilometers from the Czech-Austrian border. Her parents were working on their farm. After the Munich Agreement of 1938, the village had become a part of the newly established Sudetenland, a part of the Nazi Germany. Helena went to an elementary school in Hranice, after that, she had been working at her parents’ farm. After the communist coup of 1948, her father, Václav Tikalský, refused to join the agricultural co-op. In 1954, the witness married Karel Divoký. Her husband came from the nearby village of Hrdlořezy, where she had been working on a family farm. Her husband had been forced to join the coop as well. In 1958, Karel Divoký had been charged with larceny, he had been given a suspended sentence and his possessions had been nationalized. In 1961, the Tikalský family had to hand over their land and cattle to the State Farm National Company. Until her retirement, Helena had been working in dairy farming as a milkmaid. She raised four children with her husband. After the Velvet Revolution, she was given back her family’s fortunes. In 2020, Helena Divoká had been living in her house in Hranice.