Daddy got arrested on the street and never came back
Download image
Marie Keprtová, née Diepoltová, was born on 1 October 1931 in Prague into the family of Oldřich and Františka Diepolt. Her parents ran a delicatessen in Moravská Street in Vinohrady, where they also lived. His father was originally an officer in the Czechoslovak army. Marie had an older sister, Olga, and their upbringing was the responsibility of their nanny, Marie Straková, with whom Marie had a close relationship throughout her life. She started school in 1937 at Mírov Square. In 1939, her father Oldřich Diepolt was arrested by the Gestapo for resisting the occupiers. After a trial in Leipzig, he was deported to the Dachau concentration camp, where he died in January 1941. According to the testimony of General Wilhelm Stanovsky, he died of pneumonia after hard work in the freezing cold. Marie entered the Real Reform Girls’ Grammar School in Slezská Street in 1942. She recalls the fate of some of the Jewish families in the neighborhood, such as the Blochs, who perished in Treblinka. In February 1945, she lived through the bombing of Prague, which also hit Vinohrady. After the war, in 1947, she went to France for a two-month stay as part of a program for survivors of Nazi victims. She studied at the business academy in Karlín, where she met her future husband Vladimír Keprt. They married on 16 September 1950 and had two sons. In 1954, she joined Mototechna in the import department, and later worked at Mercurie, which imported kitchen appliances. She spent a total of twenty years in the foreign trade industry. In 1968 her sister Olga emigrated to Switzerland and the memoirist found herself under pressure from the authorities and State Security. She lost the opportunity to travel to the West. She refused to join the Communist Party and to cooperate with State Security. In 2003 she was widowed and two years later she lost her elder son Vladimír, who died suddenly of a hidden heart defect. In 2025, Marie Keprtová was living in Prague.
