Jitka Lišková

* 1940

  • „They found a couple of skins, while looking after the people, who they arrested, they found skins. They´d tear the floor up on the roof and found skins dag up since Hitler´s times. And also letters written by my uncle Rudolf to my aunt from Argentina. The secret police guy himself claimed that it´d easily make a whole book, how well it was written. Our dad, there was such disillusion, as he worked real hard all his life, and didn’t have much out of it and in the end all that mattered was to be named Schönbach, to get locked for half a year.“

  • „So once I went dancing. And a boy came to ask me to dance and his mother came to fetch him, saying: ‚You won´t dance with the criminal´s daughter!‘“

  • „Before the WW2 a hundred people worked in a factory, and after the war around fifty. I got to say it was the only operational factory in the area and it was emplying a lot of people. Our father had nothing much to do with it, just he was hidding skin pieces as a material for my brothers.“

  • „I had an excellent school report but no job. They gave me a bad employee record so a lady engineer told me: ‚Jitka, you cannot even feed cows, it is not possible.‘ We had an accountant, who was really good and said: ‚I´ll give you advice, go to Slapy. They wrote us they need a graduate.‘ So I went to Slapy near Tábor. Well mum had to borrow me money to travel. And to save money I went on foot from Tábor. I came there and the boss told me they have no graduate´s job anymore. And I replied: ‚You know what? My employee report is so bad, apparently I cannot feed cows.‘ And he said: ‚You know what, I will let you know in a week. You´ll be working manually for three months as per usual and we´ll see then.‘ I ended up working there for nine and a half years.“

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    Byt syna pamětnice, Dykova 5, Jihlava., 23.03.2015

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    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I could not even feed cows with my employee report

Jitka_Liskova_dobove.jpg (historic)
Jitka Lišková
photo: Archiv pamětnice

Jitka Lišková, née Schönbachová, was born on 12 July, 1940 in Černovice near Tábor. Her father was a boss in a gardening centre, came from five brothers, three of which were owners of a leather company Schönbach in Černovice. The factory was nationalised in 1948 and two out of three brothers immigrated to Argentina. Due to their emigration the Schönbach family was tried to various problems with the regime, which eventually resulted in the indictment of almost all relatives, including a father of the witness, who was charged with stealing property and a bad attitude to the democratic system. The father of Jitka Lišková was sentenced to serve six months in prison and a deprivation of civil rights. After releasing from prison he worked as a brick layer. Despite various troubles the witness managed to learn to be a gardener and despite having found a job in a gardening centre in Slapy near Tábor. In 1967 she married and had a new family. Both her parents died in 1968. In 1989 she was a co-founder of the Civic forum in Nová Cerekev and enthusiastically awaited new regime. Her request for returning old family factory has been refused with reasoning was rejected on the grounds that the factory owner Václav Schönbach had no Czech citizenship. Jitka Lišková lives in Nová Cerekev, has two sons and three grandsons.