Ludmila Machalová

* 1927

  • “All I know is that [Soviets] wouldn't shoot. Because they came to us and three were in our kitchen. They called Jenda to the security [SNB], because it was changing quite a lot. And when Jenda talked about someone being shot, one of the [Soviet] officers said, 'The first dead was our man.' I don't know if in Prague or where. They talked about the uprising in Prague. And as Indra, it was some a group, called to Moscow. I don't know exactly; it was a mess.”

  • “I went to them to the Jewish cemetery. Irča took me to a grandma who was already a really old lady. They were called Pöck. The old man walked in a long black coat, a hat on his head. And they had only one room. There we practically all had only one room. Only with us, where the room was, as I talked about it, where the dead were put for a while, so it was also for habitation. My mother made a kitchen from a hall. [The floor] was of irregular stones and uphill. She had a stove built of bricks. They connected it to the oven that was in the hallway. There was a lot of space, the shape of a piano, and there were baked Matzos.

  • “[We told each other] we were going to bed and sleep, but Jarka wanted to pee. I put her in the dormer and held her because there was still a bit of roof and a downpipe. I held her like a little kid, even though she was three or four years old. And I heard hooting and a little smoke. I say, 'Kids, something's going on!' And now they started hooting. The flames and firefighters were coming. At that time, all firefighters had bells in their apartments. A bell rang at the Pavliks. Mr. Pavlík got dressed quickly. Mr. Mikulík was already riding a bicycle from the other side from the end of Plačkov. We all leaped into the dormers and heard it howl, whistle, everything ... The temple was burning. This time they put out. But not the second time. It is said that the Flag makers set it on fire.”

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    Holešov, 21.09.2018

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    duration: 08:46:50
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
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I wish there would never be a war again - for the sake of all children of the whole world

Ludmila Machalová, a photo of that time
Ludmila Machalová, a photo of that time
photo: archiv pamětnice

Ludmila Machalová, née Daňková, was born on January 20, 1927 in Holešov. With her parents, who served as servants, they lived in very modest conditions at the Bakal family in the local district of Plačkov. Here Ludmila spent the majority of her childhood. During the war they moved to a house neighbouring the Jewish cemetery. She did not remain indifferent to the fate of the Holešov Jews. She even recalls the first attempt to burn the New Synagogue at the night of July 24, 1941. At the end of the war, she got closer to her future husband, Jan Machala, who was arrested several times as a communist resistance fighter and imprisoned in Olomouc and Breslau (today Wrocław). They got married in July 1945 and together they brought up four children. She joined the Communist Party in the 1950s and never changed her opinion on the party over the years. Her husband served as the chairman of the Holešov branch of the Czechoslovak Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters, later of the Freedom Fighters Union and also became a member of the Prague headquarters of the Czechoslovak Youth Union and a lay judge. Since 1969 Ludmila worked as a secretary and later as a member of the cadre committee at the Technical College in Holešovice barracks (then the Border Guard Officer School and SNB College). She was a deputy and councilor of the town of Holešov for one election period. She lives in Holešov today.¨