“Well, then my parents got that house with the fields and thus we began to farm at our own farmstead. We didn’t go anywhere to work as we worked at home, except for helping our neighbors. They were farmers too. I’ll never forget this in my life. I was sixteen years old at that point and we toiled on their field. It was pretty tough work. And after work, we came to them to have dinner with them and they would give us potatoes with buttermilk. Jesus Christ, we had never had such food back in France. We toiled on their field all day long and they gave us potatoes with buttermilk! So I’ll never forget these beginnings there with these farmers. It was the Hladík family, they used to live over there, at Poštovní. Well, so that’s for our help to the neighbors. Back at home, we were four and two more I think, my mom, dad, sister Míla, me, Štefka was old enough to help us too. So we were pretty much plenty to work those seven hectares. And my father was so kind that he would send us to work at the neighbor’s plot.”
“When the war broke out in 1939 or 1940, they moved us in order for the gentleman to save his horses. So we would tour France. We roved the countryside and the chateaus. Some people would even plunder those chateaus. It was a catastrophe. Then the soldiers got into our village. I don’t even recall if they were French or Russian. But there was a field kitchen in our house. So there are my childhood recollections.”
“Then we left Prague and went to Březí. But I have no idea where we went, how long the journey took or where we stopped. But I know that when we arrived in Březí, aunt Babirádová came to pick us up at the train station. She had a cart and some cows. This was a big experience for me. I asked about what that cart was for. I couldn’t help but stare at it. But the worst thing about our arrivel in Březí and Dunajovice was that we had no place to stay.”
“And thus, in 1948, my father began to farm. He actually started already when we came there in 1947, when we were living on our own. But right when he began to farm, the Communists came and accused him of killing some of his pigs without a permit, thus illegally. But it was not at all true. We were ten kids, so how could he have killed them without a permit, when we didn’t even have any pigs altogether. So thereafter he was disgusted with Czechoslovakia, too. But he deserved this in a way. He should have listened to what the old man in France had to say to him. He had told him that one day, he would regret going back to Czechoslovakia. My father replied he never would. Well, unfortunately, finally, he really regretted that they didn’t take the return visa and that they didn’t see first how things were here. Those first few years, they really were a disaster. It was a disastrous beginning, because in addition, he didn’t know at all how to do it. He thought that there would be a field and two cows and the farm and that he would farm there.”
Our greatest wish was to return to France. Unfortunately it was impossible.
Františka Lukášová
photo: Dobový portrét pochází z archivu pamětnice, součásná fotografie pořízena po rozhovoru.
photo: Dobový portrét pochází z archivu pamětnice, součásná fotografie pořízena po rozhovoru.
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Františka Lukášová was born on January 1, 1931, in the French village of Bois-lès-Pargny, where her family moved in 1928 from Slovakia. Her parents worked for a local landowner. Františka has almost no recollections of this period today. She remembers, however, the moving of her family to the nearby village of Paissa where her parents again worked with a local landowner, who was called Monsieur Grou. Františka says she lived a happy and carefree childhood, which was only briefly interrupted by the war and the occupation of France by the German army. Monsieur Grou, in order to save his cattle and horses, made the Paissa residents leave the village and tour France with the animals for several months. After the departure of the soldiers from Paissa, life returned to normal. After 1945, the family began to receive letters from Františka’s aunt from Dolní Dunajovice, who lured the family back to Czechoslovakia, where - she claimed - they could take a farm of their liking and farm on their own. Františka’s father was excited about this idea and decided to leave France with his family. In June 1946, they came to Prague, where they experienced their first disappointment at the encounter with the Czech authorities. Their disappointment grew further upon their arrival in Dolní Dunajovice, where they found all estates had already been taken and thus the eleven family members had to live under one roof with Františka’s aunt for several weeks. Eventually, they bought their own house and Františka’s father began to farm. The family lived through some difficult years in Czechoslovakia and especially Františka and her sisters were eager to return to France. After 1949, her father - also frustrated by the situation in Czechoslovakia - decided to join the farms cooperative and thus he had ultimately only been an independent farmer for three years.
