My mother held my ears
Download image
Lea Svobodová was born on the 14th of April 1937 in Hodonín. Her father Lev Špalek was a doctor and gynecologist, her mother Olga a children’s doctor. She had a sister that was five years older than her: Olga. She liked visiting nature and going fishing with her father. Her parents kept a large amount of social contacts. A series of well-known artists, bussinesspeople, or doctors were invited to their wine cellar in Mutěnice to a friendly sitting, but many of them also helped out with work in the vineyards. In the era of the First Republic the married couple Špalek stood at the founding of the Rotary Club in Hodonín. Around the year 1940 Lev Špalek was briefly imprisoned. In April 1945, during the liberation of the city, after the coming of the front and the bombardment, they spent almost a month in the cellar of some friends. In the year 1950 Lea fell ill and her father was arrested by State Security (StB), later he was sentenced to two and a half years of prison for political reasons. The property of the Špalek family was taken away, Lea at that time faced bullying from other children and her mother was extorted by StB. After primary school, in the year 1953, the witness’s studies at a middle school were forbidden by the decision of the municipal national committee. In the year 1955 she married the doctor Josef Svoboda and had two children with him. In the year 1964 the family moved to Jablonná nad Orlicí, where the witness still lived in the year 2019.
