Jaroslava Klápšťová

* 1945

  • "And there was a man from Zásada, they call him there, and he came to Zásada to my parents, like my parents, and told them that they had just arrested the Šikolas. Based on that, simply on the second or third day, one of the smugglers came and wanted money for the transfer, because when the transfer took place, he was supposed to get the money. Well, my mother and dad said that they didn't know what to give him money for, that my grandmother and grandfather were just in the spa, in Mariánské Lázně, and that they just wouldn't give them any money. Because they really found out that they may have taken them somewhere in handcuffs, and it was clear that in handcuffs they simply arrested them, so they didn't get the money. If they had given the money, and purely by chance, imagine a large republic, there is one person from Zásady, and if they had given the money, my parents and my sister, who was two years old at the time, we both would of course be brought up in an orphanage, because when someone got locked up, the children were simply put in an orphanage."

  • "When ours were supposed to leave, it was my grandfather, grandmother and my uncle, and at the same time he was leaving with them, because they supposedly locked up some Šourek and his daughter Jaroslava, who my classmate. So, with his daughter and his second daughter, she was my classmate. To do this, they took Mr. Halam from Loužnice, so they wanted to transfer two families of three people each. It is said, I do not know what the truth is, but it is said that when both two came... in the same way, it was provoked by the action Stone, and when they came somewhere to the Marianske Lazne, that is, to the western borders, he came , his name was I think Dengert, I don't know exactly right now, stating he could only transfer one family. So they said they drew lots, which family would go first and which family would go second, it had to go back and try again."

  • "And I still remember that when my grandmother returned, I was eight at the time. She was completely... She smoked, then of course she stopped, then she never smoked her whole life. She smoked and had completely... She lived in such a cell because they moved us upstairs, she lived in a cell, where she was no heating, and she had completely hysterical seizures. I just remember how I just... I remember it as the worst hysteria, because actually the prison... And when we asked something, they replied, 'Don't ask, it was terrible, it was terrible.' So, basically, they let us live in such ignorance as grandchildren, because she said it couldn't be spoken of, as that it just terrible."

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    Jablonec nad Nisou, 10.02.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:04:20
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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The crown has decided on our lives

Jaroslava in her childhood
Jaroslava in her childhood
photo: archiv pamětnice

Jaroslava Klápšťová, née Šourková, was born on October 20, 1945 in the village of Zásada near Jablonec nad Nisou. Her grandparents ran a glass company, which is why Jaroslava and her sisters had cadre problems after 1948. In December 1950, Jaroslava’s grandparents Josef and Judita Šikol and their son tried to cross the country borders into Germany. Unfortunately, their smuggler was a collaborator of the StB and thus they became victims of the state police action named „Stone“. After crossing the false border, they were taken to a fictitious American station, where a protocol was written up with them. They were subsequently arrested by the state police, taken to the prison in Cheb and later sentenced to serve several years in prison. The Šoureks were evicted from their house because of this. Jaroslava worked all her life as a teacher of vocational subjects, especially at the Secondary School of Services and Crafts, and after 1989 she also taught German.