We were happy to get out of that hell
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Marie Dvořáková (née Zbierajewska) was born on 18 January 1931 in the village of Martinovka in Volhynia into a Czech-Polish family. When she was eight years old, the Red Army occupied Volhynia. As the daughter of a former Polish officer, she and her family were to be deported to Siberia or another remote part of the USSR. Fortunately for her and many other families of alleged enemies of the Soviet regime, the transport was thwarted by the invasion of German troops in June 1941. She weathered war and ethnic violence that engulfed the ethnically diverse region in her native village. Even the predominantly Czech Martinovka was not spared. Marie’s family spent many restless days and nights in a well camouflaged shelter. They lived to see the arrival of the Red Army and with it the Czechoslovak army. Her father, who had escaped the NKVD and had been hiding for three years, also returned. He did not stay long, going to fight to free their ancestral homeland together with his Czech relatives. It was there that the family finally reunited in 1947. As repatriated Volhynian Czechs, they found a new home in the Osoblaha region. They were not the only settlers; Moravians, Slovaks and Greeks became their neighbours. The witness went to school in the border region, found lifelong employment in a textiles factory and, despite the untimely death of her first husband, she also found family happiness. At the time of filming (2025), she lived in Krnov. However, in her memories she often returned to Volhynia and to the people who made up its extraordinary character.
