Libuše Straková

* 1930

  • “At first, you asked me if we knew who had contributed to it and I answered you using a phrase that I forgave them but did not forget. However, it is not true I did not forgive nor did I forget. It was said about one comrade who had worked for us, well it was not only just said but it was the truth that my father caught him when he stole a piece of rare equipment and put it in a bag with sawdust but the weighing machine showed it. He had to empty it, they found out about it and the comrade was fired. Well, it was said that he did his part. However, to be honest, it was such a time, they nationalized, it was the communist regime that you could not avoid. We were indeed affected a bit more. I think that my parents were wronged the most, they were very modest, hard-working, they did not help themselves by cheating or by misusing anything - and they paid for all of it with their health. Dad could work just immediately before retirement in the sawmill in Holice, he of course worked manually and was a bundle of nerves. So I feel that my parents were wronged the most.”

  • “He also lived in Pardubická Street, where our factory was. His family had Jewish origin, his name was Kantner. And I was narrating about the funerals, so we went to a funeral of a single young woman and we as funeral bridesmaids went to a pub for burial service. We did not walk behind the coffin as a couple but he started to pay attention to me and talk to me in the pub. And it was a beautiful innocent first love. I used to go to the village for milk at night and he used to go with me. He studied to become a metalworker in Moravany and I was on the lookout for the train to hoot and we met by chance, it was a beautiful love, more likely a friendship. And at the end of the war those young people were sent to forced labour in Germany and about three or four young men ran away right before the revolution but I did not see him again, someone just told me that Karel had returned home. And the uprising took part several days later, the bombs were dropping in Holice and those boy scouts probably wanted to prevent the Germans from coming through at the end of Pardubická Street and they (the Germans) simply shot all of them. It was a murder but it did not happen in combat but from a long distance. There is still a small memorial with the names of the killed boy scouts. So that is how my first sad love ended.”

  • “I cannot describe the atmosphere, it was such tense, I could feel that something would happen. And there was a cellar across the yard and so we run to the cellar and at once the bombs started to fall. All the windows were smashed in the factory, it was not hit but it happened because of the pressure. And the soldiers were running down the streets and picking up all the men. We had to go out, so we went out from the cellar and they immediately picked up dad. I could speak German quite well, I had had private lessons and was prepared to sit a state exam. My mum was five months pregnant. I had to go and get a key and had to open all the doors. I did it automatically and did not think about it at all. I did (everything) that they told me. And there was a young man, a soldier and he told me: ‘You cannot be here alone with your mum. Can I take you somewhere?‘ ?‘ So I told him (to take us) to our neighbour who lived across the street. So he took us, stopped the shooting, and helped us cross the street. And right behind the gate my mum clutched her head and said: ‘Líba, the ham and pasta bake is still in the electric oven!‘ So I took a handkerchief and (went) again to the street, the soldier took me across the street again, I turned off the oven, caught a suitcase because I told him that my mum had forgotten her medicine there. I did not think about it at that time but then at the end of the war I thought, you see, Hitler didn't devastate all of them after all. What the soldier must have lived through and it stayed in him after all... well it did.”

  • “I remembered that we rolled them little loaves of bread. There was a baker in Dudychova Street for a short time and he let us have black bread without food coupons, he knew why we were buying it that it was not for us. So we would always roll it down from the pavement and someone would pick it up. They were poor fellows, they were shuffling, they were not marching, the prisoners of war.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Holice, 19.05.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 01:03:22
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Holice, 22.07.2021

    (audio)
    duration: 37:26
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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They forced the family from the factory and the house when their daughter was in a plaster bed

Bedridden Libuše Vinařová around 1950
Bedridden Libuše Vinařová around 1950
photo: witness´s archive

Libuše Straková née Vinařová was born on 26 February 1930 in Hradec Králové. She lived with her parents and grandparents in a house where her grandfather´s smithery was. Her father Bohumil Vinař took over the business and started to make different products made of bentwood. He bought a building in Pardubická Street in Holice before the war and he moved the production there. Libuše studied well at school and she wished to study but her father did not allow her, he only allowed her to study at a two-year business school in Chrudim which was supposed to prepare her for the takeover of the family factory. However, Libuše became seriously ill with a bone tuberculosis in 1949 and ended up bedridden in a plaster bed. Their factory was nationalized in a year and the Vinařs had to move away. They left their house with furniture on two handcarts and Libuše in bed. She spent 37 months in a garden gazebo where her parents and friends visited her until she got up to her feet after an operation and subsequent rehabilitation. Her return to life was gradual, she loved theatre and became an enthusiastic amateur actress. She wanted to have a family and she and her husband had two children together. She worked in a cultural house in Holice until her retirement and she did not skip any theatre performance, either on stage or in the auditorium. She and her sister got the factory back in restitution in 1990. They could not restore the original production, they rented the space and they sold the building after some time. Libuše Straková was 91 years old and still in good health in 2021 and she actively participated in cultural events in Holice.