“It was tough there. As a child I was used to having milk because we had our own cows. In Hrubčice Mum had to clean up twelve pieces of cattle, I did the pigs and Dad the horses. We also had to work on the fields. When Mum milked a cow, she would hide half a litre because otherwise we wouldn’t even get a drop of milk there. The cows were there, but not even a drop of milk, that was all handed over. We only had one room, where Mum hid it. [Another woman] went sniffing round there and found it. That was bad. Oh gosh. We couldn’t understand each other. We didn’t speak Czech and she didn’t speak German. So she found someone to translate. She gave us what for.”
“The Communists made a big mistake when they had the houses demolished. Some time later people began looking for places to spend the weekend. It was a pity. They had good roofing, and it would’ve been enough to repair a bit here and there and people could’ve had them as cottages. Everything was destroyed. They came with bulldozers and destroyed everything. It was a waste of those buildings. Do you know lovely it was there before? From up there you could see all the way to Mount Praděd and to Poland. Everywhere. A lovely view. It isn’t quite as nice any more, as the trees are taller. It’s overgrown now, but there used to be a lovely view there. Especially when the weather was good. It’d be so lovely there now, if there were a few cottages there. People would definitely like it there.”
“Just imagine, one neighbour who used to live behind the chapel, then one time her daughter came to visit and brought a wooden cross with her and planted it in the place where the chapel used to stand. But someone wouldn’t tolerate even a cross there, so they stole it. A big enough wooden cross. I don’t even know how she got it there.”
Elisabet Klamertová, née Pelclová, was born in 1931 in the now-abandoned settlement of Hřibová (Pilzberg in German) in the Rychlebské Mountains. Just like all the local inhabitants in those days, her parents were also of German nationality. Her father’s forest job protected the family from the expulsion of Germans after the war, and their family was one of three that remained in the settlement. In 1947, remaining Germans were displaced throughout the country, the officials transferred her family to farm work in the Prostějov District. They were not allowed to return to the Javorník District until 1952. Hřibová was completely abandoned by then, and was finally demolished by Czechoslovak soldiers in 1960. Nowadays, the former settlement is visible only in the ruins of the largest farm belonging to the Koblitz family, fruit trees and piles of field stones; Elisabet Klamertová and Mr Wittich are the last of its native inhabitants living in the Czech Republic. Elisabet Klamertová lived with her husband Bruno in the village of Uhelná. She passed away on October, the 20th, 2022.
