Mgr. Lydie Půrová

* 1932

  • ‘The chestnut trees were blooming and Josífek climbed up a tree in the garden and threw them down to me. I really liked the flowers and I liked to look at the beautiful colouring. And I would go to the hospital to see Slávek. That’s possibly the most vivid memory for me because he was lying there and didn’t even know we were there, and then he got better.’

  • ‘We had neighbours, the Žitný family, and they had a married daughter in Zborov. Zborov was very close to Malín. Their daughter’s seventeen year old son ran over to Ledochovka in the evening and we heard what he said. We knew something was up. We saw smoke and you could hear shots being fired. He told us about it and we didn’t want to believe it. He told us that everybody was probably dead and that Malín burnt down. It was unbelievable. The next day, or the day after that, my mother and my cousin Emilka who lived with us went to have a look. They were completely broken when they came back and didn’t even want to talk about it. They just said that it was all true. I only got there much later. And each time I remembered it and I cried. I never even saw it and I just kept crying that they were gone and that they would never come back. Those were terrible thoughts.’

  • ‘Slávek got ill with encephalitis shortly beforehands and was unconscious. A doctor from Malín of Jewish origin (Otto Gross – author’s note) cured him miraculously. There was no medicine. I would visit him and Slávek didn’t even know about the outside world. He had fevers and they said that even if he healed he would never be normal again because his brain would be damaged. He was cured completely in May and everything was alright. I would always spend my summer holidays there because I was alone and felt sad at home. We had so much fun with my cousins Josífek and Slávek. I would only go home in July. Slávek was cured in May and burnt to death in July. Such a tragedy. Everyone was happy and then…’

  • ‘My uncle Viktor was half mad. When they were hunting down his son Slávek, it was hot outside and he had boots on because they thought they would be going somewhere. His feet got sweaty and hurt so he took the boots off. Then they trapped them in a stable and burnt it down. The shoes stayed there. My uncle found them later. With my aunt lying on top of Venoušek to save him there was a piece of her dress left. He took that and put it into the boot and he also found a piece of something of Slávek’s. He carried it around in the boot and showed everyone, saying those were his children and wife. He was half mad.’

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    Šumperk, 03.01.2018

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My mum said that those peacock calls sounded as if they were bringing misfortune

Lydie Beštová Maturitní fotografie (Půrová)
Lydie Beštová Maturitní fotografie (Půrová)
photo: archiv pamětnice

Lydie Půrová, née Beštová, was born on the 28thof July 1932 in Český Straklov na Volyni, a town which fell under Poland at the time (today it is a part of Ukraine). She spent a large part of her childhood in a nearby village called Ledochovka. Her family was heavily affected by the crimes committed by both the Communist and Nazi regimes. Her aunt, Marie Todorovičová and her children, living in the eastern Volhynia, miraculously survived the man-made famine, caused by Soviets. Her uncle Vladimír Bešta and his son were shot to death for being exploiters of the country people, his wife and two more children were forced into exile. Other relatives of Lydie died in Český Malín, a town burnt down by the Nazis that became a symbol of the suffering that Volhynia Czechs endured. Within a single day, three aunts, two uncles, and three female and three male cousins were murdered, the youngest, Václav, being only five years old. In 1947 the family re-emigrated to Czechoslovakia and settled in Frankštát, as did a lot of families from Český Malín after the expulsion of Germans. Out of respect, the town changed its name to Nový Malín in 1947. Despite the fact that Lydie only spent six years in school in Ukraine her parents enrolled her in a high school in Šumperk from which she successfully graduated. Later she graduated at the pharmaceutical faculty of the Masaryk University in Brno. She married Lubomír Půr in 1957, and gave birth to her son Igor and her daughter Ivana. She worked at a pharmacy in Šumperk up until she retired and still lived there with her husband as of 2018.