Ingrid Leser

* 1949

Sudeten Germans
30. 5. 1945 – 29. 10. 1946 - Withdrawal of Germans from Czechoslovakia, 8. 5. 1945 - End of WWII
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    Where is the enemy?

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    "We always met in the school canteen on Wednesdays. That was the day when meatless meals were cooked. They apologized to me for that, I said that it didn't matter to me, that I like flour meals anyway. So, I ate pancakes, doughnuts, everything tasted like made by a grandma. So, I thought to myself, where is the enemy? People are nice, friendly, hospitable, so where is the enemy? These thoughts kept me busy and it was like a merry-go-round with me. In 2004, we in Tachov they celebrated the entry of the Czech Republic into the European Union together with groups from the Czech Republic and Germany. We sang the national anthems. Suddenly, I broke out in a cold sweat. Here I was, in this old ruin, everything was not repaired yet, and I sang the Czech national anthem. My mother taught me the anthem. I burst into tears, I couldn't sing any more. I realized that my parents' and grandparents' generation had divided Europe. And here we are now celebrating its reunification. It was hard to understant. And I have these experiences all the time. For one aside, I am a descendant of a family that was driven out, who lost her house, farm, everything. On the other hand, I am enthusiastic about the Czech Republic. My grandfather would never call himself a Sudeten German. He always claimed to be a German from Bohemia."

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    The extinction of Pavlův Studenec

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    "The village Pavlův Studenec lay on the border, it had about 1,700 inhabitants. Because it was so close to the border, it was razed to the ground in the 1950s. I didn't understand that at all as a child. Why are houses destroyed? Why do the bulldozers destroy them? Many people who lived in Bärnau came from Pavlův Studenec. So, they said to each other: 'Today they are demolishing your house.' It was terrible and terrifying: why are they demolishing houses where Germans used to live? As a six-year-old child, I couldn't understand it.'

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    Life on the border and home beyond it

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    "I came to Bärnau with my parents in 1955 and started attending a school there. In 1956, my grandparents also moved to live with us. My grandfather was a farmer at home and it was important for him not to go to work in a factory, but to run his own small farm. He often talked about what it was like at home. Bärnau is on the border, his fields were on the border, we often went there and he said: 'Look, if we went that way for three hours, we would be home.' Home, how is home? We were still living on the border and it sounded like a fairy tale to me. Home… so why am I here? Why is there a line that cannot be crossed, why would they shoot immediately? Are there bad people? Where is the problem? So, a man lived on the frontier and knew that when one went into the forest to gather fruit, one had to be careful, be careful, be careful. Oh well."

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    Rehau, 09.07.2018

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    duration: 53:48
    media recorded in project Stories of the expelled Germans born in the Karlovy Vary region
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    Rehau, 09.07.2018

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    duration: 01:40:56
    media recorded in project Stories of the expelled Germans born in the Karlovy Vary region
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Why is there a border here?

Ingrid Leser, 2018
Ingrid Leser, 2018
photo: PB

Ingrid Leser was born in 1949 in Tirschenreuth, Bavaria. Her parents were exiles who came here only a few months ago: her mother came from Tachov region, her father from Zlaté Hory in Jeseníky. When Ingrid was still young, the family moved to nearby Bärnau, close to the Czechoslovak border. The family circle was completed by grandparents from the mother’s side, memories of the lost home in Czechoslovakia were a frequent topic of domestic conversations. Ingrid thus had the opportunity to become very familiar not only with the fate of the family, but also with the various customs and traditions that the Germans in the Tachov region maintained. She herself, after a short career in a bank and a longer stay in England, decided to become an English teacher, working for many years at an elementary school in Bärnau. She was very interested in Czechoslovakia since childhood, she tried to visit it often and maintain friendly relations with the locals. With her activities, it significantly contributes not only to the strengthening of friendly relations between Czechs and Germans, but also to the preservation of the cultural heritage of Czechoslovakian Germans.

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