Inka Tichá

* 1943

  • "And there, when I was finishing my second year, [a letter] came from the National Committee from Oldřiš and from the cooperative farm saying that they should expel me because my father didn´t want to enter the cooperative farm, so that I would be dropped out of school. At the time, it was common practise because my classmate was also expelled due to his parents not entering the cooperative farm. Thanks to the headmaster, Mr. Flek, who was a communist, but he was a good person. He was quitting at the time, retiring. He invited me to his office and told me what [letter] had come. I was supposed to say it at home so that my parents would join the cooperative farm. I didn't tell my parents anything at home because I didn't want to extort them. The director was quitting the school and, over the holidays, he might have put the request from the village and the collective farm aside or hidden it, I don´t know. And when the next year I came to school in September, there was no talk of it and there was a new headmaster, and I believe that if this one had been given the order, I wouldn´t have finished the school, I would have been sent home by him."

  • "And once, when mom was pasturing ... above the house, there was such a meadow, a clearing, she was pasturing cows ... she suddenly fell down. I ran quickly. First, my brother and I drove the cows home, to the stable, we carried mom home, and I ran to Borová for my grandma to come. A doctor arrived and mom was taken to the hospital, to Polička. Actually, I stayed at home alone with my brother. I was ten and my brother thirteen. We tried to do at least something, but we weren´t able to manage everything. My mother was in the hospital for a week and we were told it was a nervous breakdown and body exhaustion, both from work and stress. When Dad was arrested, two or three men in civilian clothes arrived and said that Dad would remain locked up and that we would be evicted to the borderlands, among the gypsies. And that we could only take a few things."

  • "Well, the times were really tough and above all, I remember how my father was arrested. It's almost the same scene as how it was showed in the film All Good Natives [Všichni dobří rodáci]. How they come to pick František on the meadow. It was the same with us. My family was drying hay on the back meadow and two officers of NSC [the National Security Corps] came there saying they were going to take my dad for an interview about entering the collective farm. I was in that meadow then, so I remember what my dad said, I can still recall it, because it was quite an intense experience ... Dad said that he would feed cattle first, that he didn't believe he could be back for dinner and that the animals needed to eat. And that mom wouldn´t be able to do the feeding, with us children. So Dad cut fodder with scythe and as we were all still in the meadow, we helped him load it on the cart and went home. The NSC officers followed us all the time and walked behind the cart. Then Dad also went home and fed the cattle, the cows, brought forage from the barn, and the NSC officers followed him everywhere, I can still recall it vividly, and it was pretty scary. And then Dad left with them and didn't return until a month later. He hadn´t signed entering the collective farm, so I don't know what paragraph was applied so that they could keep him that long. He was in custody."

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    Polička, 23.09.2020

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We were threatened that my father would not return and we would be sent to the borderlands

Inka Tichá with her grandmother Josefa Kučerová and brother Vladimír (1943)
Inka Tichá with her grandmother Josefa Kučerová and brother Vladimír (1943)
photo: archive

Inka Tichá, née Roušarová, was born on May 17, 1943 in Polička. She lived with her parents and brother Vladimír in the nearby village of Oldřiš, where the family had a medium-sized farm. Father Vladimír Roušar was born in 1914. Mother Marta Roušarová, née Kučerová, was born in 1911. Father and mother came from agricultural families and evangelical faith played an important role in their lives. They also sang in a church choir. Roušar’s were doing well in agriculture, cows showed high yield, the family bred hens - the Czech golden spotted sort - and sold their eggs for hatching. In the fields mainly potatoes and flax were grown. Thanks to having the profitable farm, they were able to modernize it continuously. However, after the communist coup, an effort to collectivize agriculture was also made in Oldřiš, which the witness’s father opposed vigorously. Thanks to his skilfulness, hard work and knowledge, he was able to fulfil the high contributions. The Communists tried to make every possible and impossible effort to persuade him to join the collective farm. At first, he was offered the position of chairman of the cooperative, after his refusal the authorities tightened up and made life uncomfortable for the family in every possible way. A forced lease was imposed on a low fertility field lying fallow so that her father would not be able to fulfil the contributions. Vladimír Roušar was arrested in 1953. He was held in custody for a month and then released on parole. All the time, her mother did not know where he was kept. Plainclothes officers of the National Security Corps threatened her that he would not come back and she would be sent to the borderland with the children. Mother could not endure the great mental and physical pressure and broke down, which resulted in health problems for the rest of her life. Father eventually ended up in prison in Chrudim for six weeks after failing to meet the required contributions in time. Father did not join the collective farm until the 1960s. Inka Tichá graduated from the secondary agricultural school in Chrudim and worked as a zootechnician. In 1963 she got married, moved to the village of Nedvězí and brought up three children. After the Velvet Revolution, her son Jiří got back to the family tradition and runs a farm at his mother and grandfather’s birthplace. In 2020, Inka Tichá was living in Nedvězí.