Slávka Netrvalová

* 1925

Sokol, Witnesses of local events connected to WWII, Svědci lokálních událostí z éry komunismu
29. 9. 1938 - The Munich Diktat, 25. 2. 1948 - Communist coup d‘état in ČSR, 21. 8. 1968 - Invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops, 19. 6. – 23. 6. 1948 – The Sokol Gathering, 8. 5. 1945 - End of WWII
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    All-Sokol Rally in 1948

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    “Admired it. I lived for it. When I realize that Mrs. Provazníková was standing on the leader’s platform, she was like a god for us. However, I did not see her wave, because the Sokol women from Prague stood in the front rows. They had trained to fill the space, and it was no easy task. The poor woman later had to emigrate to Canada. Unfortunately I did have the opportunity to see president Beneš anymore; Gottwald was already there at that time. We knew that she was not able to live here, and she is probably no longer alive. People were saying at that time that the Sokol chapter from Pilsen had performed with their backs turned against the stands. I did not see it, I only heard about it, but it is possible.”

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    Marches of Heinlein's supporters

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    “And then it began to get worse, when Heinlein started hatemongering in the radio. We even stopped playing with the kids, we were no longer good for them. And it culminated when the Heinlein supporters started organizing marches. We lived on the main street and we could see already from far that they were marching. They were shouting: ‘Heim nach Reich!’ And they wore those shorts and riding trousers and boots and we were standing behind the curtain with my mom and waiting for a stone to hit our window. But we lived on the second floor. If they knew where Czechs lived, they would be throwing stones at their windows.”

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    Bombing of Brno

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    “There was a large regional maternity hospital and there was nothing on the opposite side of the street. It had all been destroyed by bombing. There were only heaps of stones. We were standing there with Zdenka, and we did not have anything except the schoolbags in our hands. We decided to go back to school. But a German with a rifle was standing there. He told us that we were not allowed to go inside because there were time bombs there. Údolní Street was on fire from both sides and we had to run through that fire. The street is quite wide, so we could manage it, but you can imagine how we, nineteen-year-old girls felt. We ran around one block of houses and we returned to the school. We sat down on the staircase – the school building was already empty. We thought about what we would do now. An old granny with a bucket and a broom came there and she asked us: ‘Girls, what are you doing here?’ We told her that we had nowhere to go. And she said: ‘Fine, you will come to me then.’”

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    Nový Bor, 19.11.2017

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I am a Sokol and I will be a Sokol and I honour the principle

Netrvalová Slávka as a young girl
Netrvalová Slávka as a young girl
photo: archiv pamětnice
photo: archiv pamětnice
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Slávka Netrvalová, née Matušková, was born on May 31, 1925 in Oldřichov in Hranice (part of Hrádek Nad Nisou in the Liberec district) to Antonie Matušková, née Vlachová, from Police nad Metují, and to Jan Matuška from Dobruška. Her father was an inspector of the Finance Guard (part of the State Defense Guard battalion) and until the German takeover of the Sudetenland she thus spent a large portion of her childhood in the borderlands, in Deštné v Orlických horách and in Hanšpach (present-day Lipová in the Šluknov hook). After the declaration of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia she lived with her parents in Bystré u Poličky and in Pelhřimov. During World War Two she studied at Vesna school (Masaryk’s State Special Pedagogical Institute for Education of Female Teachers of Vocational Schools for Women’s Professions). The house in which she lived in a rented room got hit on November 20, 1944 during the bombardment of Brno, and Slávka then stayed with nuns until her graduation from the school. She completed her studies in 1946 and then she returned to Bohemia to her parents and she became a teacher at the household school in Česká Lípa. In February 1948 she was interrogated in relation to her statements against the minister Zdeněk Nejedlý. Slávka, who was a long-time Sokol member, participated in the last All-Sokol Rally in Prague in 1948. Following the purges, she was expelled from Sokol. However, she still continued exercising -in TJ Dolní Poustevna for a short time and later in Nový Bor. In 1948 she married JUDr. Karel Bulíř and their only daughter Bohuslava was born in 1949. In 1952 they moved into a small house in Okrouhlá. In 1955 she participated in the first post war Spartakiade sports rally. Slávka worked as a teacher in kindergarten in Nový Bor and at the elementary school in Arnultovice and in Polevsko. She was a long time member of the Choir of North Bohemian Teachers and the chairwoman of the Red Cross organization in Okrouhlá and she also served as a lecturer for the Red Cross. In 1955 she took part in the performance ‘Sower’ the Spartakiade and in 1960, sixteen women from Okrouhlá got all the way to the Strahov stadium in Prague. In 1973 she divorced her husband JUDr. Bulíř and in 1982 she married PhDr. Ota Netrval who had served in the cabinet of Jan Masaryk, had been in the Czechoslovak military mission in Korea in 1953 and who had served at the embassy in Sweden and in West Berlin. Due to his support for Dubček, in 1969 he was recalled back to the ministry and he then kept working there until his retirement. Slávka still lives in Okrouhlá and she enjoys good health.

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