Eva Haňková

* 1925

  • "The very day we landed, we took a bus from New York to Iowa. The trip from New York to Cedar Rapids - Cedar Rapids, Iowa, there is a big Czech community - took about two and a half days. So it's a long bus ride. And so we got on the bus right away in the evening and left. It kind of felt like - I've said this to somebody before - that we were hanging out somewhere and that seat on the bus was the only home I had. Everything around me is foreign. And so when I was looking in one of the towns that we were driving through... it was just getting dark and people turned lights on in their living room or dining room or somewhere and you could see into the windows - because they don't board up the windows - I saw them serving dinner or pouring coffee in some company, and I was like, 'Oh my God, we're going to have this one day.' To be able to invite someone over and have company... somewhere in the dream... But at the time, we were hanging out somewhere."

  • "We spent the first American holiday, Thanksgiving, which is so important, on the boat. And there was a terrible storm. We were promised we'd get a roast turkey and after dinner there would be dancing. Nothing came of it. In the morning, the Atlantic was rough as hell. The waves were like mountains, crashing against the ship and making a terrible noise. It was a terrible noise. And people were sick. So there was no roast turkey and no dancing. Anyway, people got together in the dining room in the evening, and they gave us some lectures about America and Thanksgiving and so on, and then there was some music. So at least it might have been a pleasant evening, but it rocked us along nicely and the sea was still roaring as hell when we were going to bed. And the boat was creaking! So it was such an unpleasant feeling, the boat was creaking. But the next day it was good."

  • "It was called Buchenau. And it was a small village. They sent us to the Valka camp in Nuremberg, so we were only there for a few days, not much. That camp, well, if you had to, you could live there, but it was never meant for living. It was the changing rooms of the stadium that Speer had built for Hitler. Changing rooms. That's what it was, but it was a shelter. That's what we lived in. But we weren't there long. And then we moved to Frankfurt, and our relatives were there too, my husband's relatives. That's where I got this job, and when I got the job, we rented a room in this kind of dusty, half-broken house. It had been bombed out. But it was livable. So we had one room. And by then we felt: we're already living. And we already felt like Frankfurters."

  • "We had to cross the restricted zone. We entered the restricted zone at six in the morning and crossed the Bavarian border at three in the afternoon. So it's a long way and it's terribly overgrown, it's terribly... And the other thing is, it's also awfully easy to get lost. And asking someone to guide you - that was risky. That was very risky. So the people who managed to make it through the Iron Curtain were quite few."

  • "I almost didn't survive the end of the war, the last day. I was in Žďár and there really was a shooting. However, it ended there too. I know we used to listen on the 8th of May and put blankets on and listen to the BBC. Winston Churchill announced to the world that the war with Germany was ending. It was not over for us. For us, it ended in two days. So that is how it was. The last day for us was the 9th and then the 10th of May. Then it really ended. But by then there was shooting and it was something terrible. I know that I was hiding in some ditch next to the road from the SS. Everything in front of me was on fire. And around me. And SS men above me. I did not expect to survive this. Then I had such visions that people often have before death. Nevertheless, it turned out well and somehow I got out of it.''

  • "However, then we got to Frankfurt and both my husband and I, I was the first one to get a job and that was with the IRO, which was a United Nations agency, and they looked after refugees, emigrants who needed to resettle somewhere . Therefore, this is what we did. I got a job in this because I knew German and English well. Somehow I knew all the Slavic languages. So, I could sort through the documents of all those people. If I take it that way, it must have been a terrible situation, how many people were driven from their homes. They then ended up there in Germany. They lost everything and were looking for a new life. And there were a lot of those people. I read and sorted through their documents, so I saw what was going on. That was a terrible situation. And everything was overcome.”

  • „When we were there for about a year, in Žďar, President Masaryk came to visit. My grandmother made me a Kyjov costume for a little girl for this occasion. My mom and grandma got me into it and then we went into town to visit the president. People were happy back then. The Republic was happy then. And I think you can see that in that picture. That's probably why the picture is still so popular. The goodwill of the First Republic can be seen from this. Moreover, of course President Masaryk was very popular. This visit took place there in this way. I remember that my mother and I stood under the stands and waited to see what would happen. Mr. Jindra, the manager, came there and brought his students there. Then he talked to mom for a while, that is what I remember. Then they both came to me to ask if I would go up to the podium and give a flower to the old person. Many years later, my mother told me that she was very proud of me. At the age of three, not every child would do that. I do not remember that, but my parents told me that it took a lot of work to climb the stairs to the podium. However, I climbed up there and messed around. One of the officials noticed that the president was interested in what I was doing there. Therefore, he picked me up and handed me to the president. And, that was it. I remember being in his arms and he was asking me my name and where my mom was. Therefore, I tried to find it in the crowd and show it to him, but I could not. I did not find her. Then the president picked me up. Then I explained it to my grandmother at home that someone had just photographed it. In addition, it was an important picture that really survived. And it is popular to this day.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Chicago, Illionois, USA, 22.10.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 51:33
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
  • 2

    Praha, 01.06.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 02:09:38
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 3

    Praha, 02.06.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 01:52:03
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Either we’ll get arrested, shot, or we’ll have a new life.

Eva Haňková with a kitten
Eva Haňková with a kitten
photo: Witness´s archive

Eva Haňková, née Neugebauerová, was born on 20 May 1925 in Prague. From the age of two she lived in Žďár in Moravia (today Žďár nad Sázavou) with her parents Antonie and Richard Neugebauer, who owned and ran a steam sawmill in the village. In 1928, a famous photograph was taken of President Masaryk holding the three-year-old Eva, dressed in her Kyjov costume, in his arms. The photograph was later used as the basis for a postage stamp. Eva Haňková graduated from grammar school in Pardubice in 1944, then studied languages at the Institute of Modern Languages in Prague. She married Ladislav Haňka, an agricultural engineer, and in 1950 she fled with him to Bavaria via Šumava. The following year they managed to emigrate to the United States. They found their first refuge in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, then moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Eva Haňková taught languages at a high school there. They raised two children. In 2000, Ladislav Haňka founded a foundation named after his wife at the grammar school in Žďár nad Sázavou. Every year the best graduate of the grammar school receives a scholarship and a commemorative silver coin from the foundation. In 2022, Eva Haňková was living in Kalamazoo.