Zdeňka Štýblová

* 1930

  • [The Germans left (note: from Starovice) or were expelled.] "They were here with us for a while. Some didn't want to live with the Czechs, some didn't care. We happened to have a German woman with two children with us. It was their house, but we lived together for a year or so. It must have been terrible for them. It was hard for us, too, that we lost everything, that we had nothing to wear, no shoes, nothing to eat. They were expelling them, we came here in June and they were expelling them in February to Hustopeče. It must have been terrible for them, the German woman cried. We got along well. Her husband was killed at Stalingrad and she had two Russian girls deployed there for work. So, they were working there until the front line came. Well, when we came to the house afterwards, the commissar was there with my father, so she said if she could stay there. Some of the, like, many families got together and moved into these vacant houses that were there, so they moved in one to another. And our German woman stayed with us and my mother cooked for them and for us, and by that February she was together with us."

  • "So, Daddy said he would go to a friend's house in Šakvice, that he had a butcher shop and a pub there, that he would leave us there for a few days. We stayed with him for two days, but there was always the front line coming back from the Pálava. Russian officers used to stay with that uncle. He told the lady, the housekeeper, that around three o'clock the Russians would attack the Pálava again, told her they should go to the cellar. And my mother couldn't have been more diligent than to send me to the inn. Daddy and that uncle helped there. So, mom sent me to tell them to go to the cellar, saying that the officers sent word, but there were other officers there, and they didn't release them. Dad said: ‘Go to your mom’. So, I ran to the farmhouse to them, but in the meantime, they went into the cellar and locked the main door. Now the air raid started, they started bombing from Pálava, and I stayed in the street. So, I hid between the gates and cried and screamed. Well, as a 15-year-old kid... So, I lived through one more front there, a big air raid. It seemed like an eternity to me, but I have to tell you this: my mother couldn't stand it in that cellar, and when I didn't come back, she unlocked the gate and found me behind the gate. So, she took me to the cellar, but by the evening the Russians had managed to get all the way to the Pálava and it was better after that."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Starovice, 17.09.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 01:37:36
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Starovice, 24.09.2019

    (audio)
    duration: 54:42
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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We were young, we shook off everything

1950 - profile photo - wedding
1950 - profile photo - wedding
photo: archiv pamětníků

Zdeňka Štýblová was born on 29 October 1930. She lived with her family in Velké Němčice and was in contact with a Jewish family. In April 1945, Zdeňka and her family were moved from Velké Němčice together with other residents to Hustopeče because of the movement of Marshal Malinovsky’s regiment. Their house was burnt down during the bombing of Velké Němčice. The family was left without any resources and was given the opportunity to take the house of the expelled Germans in nearby Starovice. Her future husband Karel (*1926) also moved to this village and it was here that they met after the war. They were married in 1950 and lived their whole lives in Starovice. They raised five children.