Olga Tichá

“Gift-giving for children used to be done in the factory on St. Nicholas day. Children of employees and children from the street gathered there, they recited some poems and sang songs, and then they received some presents – bags with fruits and sweets. This continued even after the factory became nationalized, and so I came there as well and I sang the folk song Okolo Suče voděnka teče (Water Flows Around Suč). And they kicked me out! And it had an unpleasant consequence: the production manager, a great communist, declared that they should have done away with us just like they had done in Russia. That they should have made us stand against the wall and shoot us. I was about four years old. I was sitting on the staircase there and crying and I was afraid to go home, because I still felt that I was to blame for everything. That if I said about this at home, I would get a beating, because I was the one who caused it that they wanted to make us stand against the wall. It was perhaps because I had sung that song, or I didn’t know why. I did not explain this to myself in any way, I just felt that everything was my fault. This feeling accompanied me throughout my entire childhood – that I was to blame for what the family was going through.”

“Mom thus did various illegal odd jobs to make ends meet and it was all very difficult for her. Now, when I reflect on it, I don’t understand how she was able to survive it. She had to cope with so much injustice. Even before the nationalization when we had the factory here, everyone here greeted us with respect. Even me, a three-year-old girl. After nationalization of the factory, people were hiding behind their gates. They did not dare not to greet us, they were ashamed. And they were afraid to greet us. And my mom had to live in this. Dad was going to work and he had his friends and acquaintances there but my mom did not. She lost all friends, and all people feared her. She did not have anything. She was very lonely and in a very difficult situation. There were people who were helping her, but they mostly did it in secret.”