Božena Koreňová

* 1931

  • "On the first floor of the slaughterhouse there was a gallery where there was one office next to another. The butchers sat there. I think that a butcher didn't even see the meat he was buying. Because I don't remember my father ever going around picking out cuts of meat. There was so much trust between the seller and the buyer that everything was done on paper. One just specified the amount of meat and the butcher delivered it. Then there was a huge hall divided by iron bars and each butcher had his own booth. He had a key to it or there was a lock, I don't know. That's where the butchers kept their sausages, meat or whatever they used to make salami. It was a refrigerator. A huge hall divided into many booths of different sizes. Of course, one had to pay for it. The butchers went there every day."

  • "My father didn't say anything in front of us, he never complained. He put up with it bravely. He said nothing in front of us at home, or elsewhere. He kept it all to himself. Imagine that from 1929, when he opened the shop, until 1952 or 1953 he was in the same place. He was building that store, selling there every day. And now it was all gone."

  • "We used to hide in a big house on Nádražní třída, now it's Rekrea there. The fireplace was quickly put down, women stopped cooking lunch. Around 10:30, the Americans or the English were flying by. We used to hide in that house because it was high. We believed that if a bomb fell on a high house, it wouldn't fall through into the basement. Whether it was true or not, I don't know. We went there during the American bombing. But mostly the planes flew over to Poland, but now and then the bomb also fell down."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Ostrava, 14.05.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:50:42
  • 2

    Ostrava, 20.05.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:22:42
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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The horrors of war through a butcher’s window

Božena Koreňová in her youth
Božena Koreňová in her youth
photo: Archiv pamětnice

Božena Koreňová, née Ranochová, was born on 16 February 1931 in Ostrava. Her father owned a butcher shop, her mother was a housewife and occasionally helped in the butcher shop. Božena spent her childhood partly playing with friends, but she also spent a lot of time in her father’s shop or at the slaughterhouse. The butcher shop continued to operate during the Second World War when meat and sausages were issued on ration cards. Her parents concentrated mostly on work and were not interested in politics. During the Second World War, Božena saw Jewish customers disappear. After the war, her father’s store lost German customers due to their deportation. She survived the end of the war in the basement, witnessing the horrific events. She experienced the looting of German property. After the end of the war, the business was still struggling with meat shortages. In 1952, her father had to join the national enterprise Masna and the shop was nationalized by the communists. He could no longer work there himself, so he changed jobs in other butcher shops in the town. Božena graduated from the business school and raised two sons with her husband Otakar Koreň. In 2021 she lived in Ostrava.