“Poor him, he also had to sweep! One time we were on our way home to Uhříněves and we saw him sweeping the train station floors. He was sweeping there, and he told me that everything was fine, that he even sometimes found a coin. Of people who had lost it there. And that he won’t complain because from time to time he finds a coin. Jesus! Mr. Urban!”
“When the air-raid sirens started howling, that meant that they were above us somewhere, the airplanes, and that we should go hide in the cellar. There had been benches prepared and we sat on them. Suddenly there was water running down into the cellar. Oh, my God! But no one said anything nasty. People back then were… I was worried they would start swearing at me. But on the contrary, they laughed about it. There was suddenly water running and I thought: ‘Well now they hit us, the water is running.’ But it was just my husband who had left the tap running. He was dotty that one…”
Vlastimila Šrůtková, née Radová, was born October 2, 1918 in Vienna. Her father was an auto mechanic who had come to Vienna for work. After several years the family moved to Uhříněves, where Vlastimila completed her primary and secondary education. She then started studying at the Czechoslovak Business Academy in Resslova street in Prague. After graduation she briefly worked for the Cremation Association. She met her husband-to-be, director of Urban hoteliers’ business network, on vacation in Yugoslavia. Since their wedding they lived together in Myslíkova street and together they had four kids. After the war her husband rented a tourist cabin by the Macocha Abyss where Vlastimila worked as a cook every season (from spring to fall) until the 1970s. After the 1968 Warsaw Pact Invasion her three daughters emigrated to the U.S.A. and Canada, her son Jiří stayed in Czechoslovakia.
