Families from Kladsko fled to us after the war, they could not stand the bullying by the Polish soldiers
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Anna Smržová, née Ševců, was born on February 5, 1927, in Machovská Lhota, in close proximity to the then Czech-German (now Czech-Polish) border. During the First World War, her father Rudolf Ševců studied as a gardener in the Broumov monastery. He married Anna Rücker, whose family owned a general store in Machov. They gradually gave birth to three daughters, of whom only the last Anna survived. She attended school in Machov for eight years and then transferred to a family school in Hronov. After the second year, her studies were interrupted during the Second World War and she began working as a women’s tailor in nearby Bezděkov nad Metují. At that time, her father worked as a gardener in neighbouring Nouzín, which already lay beyond the former state border, in the so-called Czech Corner in Kłodzko. Until 1945, the territory fell under the then German Empire, after 1945 it fell to Poland. Anna remembers the post-war movements and integration of the Kladno Czechs. After May 1945 she started working in a tailor’s plant in Broumov. In September 1947, she married Jan Smrž. At the time of filming, she lived in Machovská Lhota (2017).
