Vilma Pupová

* 1928

  • “In the morning I suddenly saw a Soviet lorry driving past and my sister sitting in it. And then I didn’t hear of her for almost nine years. They took her to Habelschwerdt (Bystrzyca Kłodzka –editor´s note) in Poland and sentenced her as kriegsverbriche, a criminal, for fifteen years. They took her to Siberia straight away. Then she came back with a confirmation that she was sentenced unjustly.”

  • “Three days later we arrived to the city railway station. They set the carriages aside, opened the gates and now each family had to stand. Farm administrators were coming there and looked at us and we were the first ones gone. Our estate administrator was Jewish and could speak German. He saw many guys and took us straight away. They put us onto a siding tractor and off we went. We were just wondering where they were taking us.”

  • „Za první republiky byla velká bída a máma tátovi říkala, že musí víc žádat za práci. Jenže lidi sami neměli peníze. Proto jsme měli doma hlad a jak nám bylo třeba deset roků, tak nás dala máma sloužit k sedlákům, abychom se aspoň najedli. Někdy doma nebylo ani dost suchého chleba. Máma se pak naučila bílit, a tak chodila po sedlácích a bílila jim byty. Zato dostala aspoň pytlík mouky a mohla napéct aspoň chleba.“

  • “Three days later we arrived to the city railway station. They set the carriages aside, opened the gates and now each family had to stand. Farm administrators were coming there and looked at us and we were the first ones gone. Our estate administrator was Jewish and could speak German. He saw many guys and took us straight away. They put us onto a siding tractor and off we went. We were just wondering where they were taking us.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Nýznerov, 16.11.2016

    (audio)
    duration: 03:00:11
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Šumperk, 02.05.2018

    (audio)
    duration: 02:05:41
    media recorded in project Stories of the region - Central Moravia
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

We didn’t know, where they were taking us and what happens to us. Nobody cared about us.

Vilma Pupová (Hadwigerová)
Vilma Pupová (Hadwigerová)
photo: archiv pamětnice

Vilma Pupová, née Hadwigerová, was born on 27 December, 1928 as the fourth out of nine children of Wilhelm and Anna in Nýznerov. Same as majority of citizens of the village also her parents were of German nationality. She spent most of her life in a native village in the Rychlebské mountains. As a child she worked at a farm during war time in Nýznerov and Dolní Lipová. In September 1946 she was interned with her family to Muně Mikulovice. Her sister Anna and cousin Hilda as members of wehrwolf the Soviet soldiers sent to Siberia and they spent over eight years in the former lagers, before they have been transported to Germany at the end of 1953. Due to forestry work the family was not displaced and they came back to Nýznerov. Yet in 1948 they were moved to Jihlavsko, where they had to work at a farm for six years. There Vilma Pupová got married in 1951, but her husband joined the army shortly after wedding and he was placed in the auxiliary technical troops. He spent over two years working in coal mines in the Ostrava region. In 1954 Vilma Pupová and her husband and children finally returned to Nýznerov. Until retirement she worked as a forestry worker. In 2016 she lived in Nýznerov.