Olga Křivková

* 1917

  • “The shelter was just a hole in the ground with a roof and inside there was this bench along the walls. Twenty people were supposed to fit in there but we were forty, sitting next to each other. I know that when the husbands in our street were digging it out, they would take turns digging.”

  • “Back then, my husband was a state employee, he worked in audit. He would travel all around the Czech country. And we had acquaintances who gave us a chance to live. This one gave us bread, another one sugar, yet another one got us something else, there were teachers among them who maybe organized a hip rose harvesting trip and brought it to us. So we made jam and some farmer gave us sugar.”

  • “People would sometimes literally avoid us, they would cross the street to avoid meeting us, because they were afraid of becoming black sheep as well. And we were black sheep of the communist regime, even though there was no reason for it. We didn’t do anything bad.”

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    Pardubice, 23.03.2015

    (audio)
    duration: 01:09:31
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Everything disappeared in a single large black hole

Olga Křivková 2015
Olga Křivková 2015

Olga Křivková, née Vlčková, was born on the 7th of February 1917. Her father was a successful merchant - while he was an apprentice, he travelled all around Western Europe and learned Italian, French, and German. He ran a home supply store in Pardubice. Olga Křivková became a dressmaker and married in 1941. She and her husband bought a house in a Pardubice quarter called Višňovka. In 1942 it was bombed by four air missiles intended for the industrial site Paramo. This left them without any funds and they spent the rest of the war at an aunt’s house. After the war, Olga’s husband entered the military service and was subsequently let go after refusing to enter the Communist Party. Olga spent her life as a housewife and raised four children. Her husband died of cancer in 1983.