My father’s family was so split up that they didn’t even know about each other
Download image
Hedvika Špačková was born on 1 April 1944 in Trhové Sviny as the younger of two children. Her father František Grill came from a German family from Chlupatá Ves, her mother Hedvika Grillová was a Czech from Besednice. At the beginning of the war, her father had to enlist in the German army as a German citizen. After returning from the war, he was interned for some time in a German internment camp in České Budějovice and the family was threatened with deportation. Her mother was able to prove that father was not a Nazi sympathizer or a member of any pro-German political party. In addition, the fact that both his children and his wife were of Czech nationality was taken into account and the family was allowed to remain in the rpublic. In contrast, all eight of his siblings had to leave the country. František Grill never met any of his relatives again. After the death of his father in 1953, the family’s German origins and the deportation of relatives across the border became a family taboo. Hedvika Špačková still does not know where her relatives on her father’s side live. Because of her father’s German origin, she experienced bullying and humiliation in primary school. In 1962, she trained as a confectioner, a profession she pursued for many years, after which she worked in other businesses. In 2025, she lived in a senior home in Dobrá Voda near Horní Stropnice.
