Emilie Vančurová

* 1921

  • "I met an Italian. He worked with us too. He said to me: 'Emi, the war over soon.' And I said, what are you talking about? - 'War over.' He spoke Czech well. He said: 'I don't work for three days and the guard nothing.' Otherwise, the guard came for us when we didn't go to work. And he said he hadn't worked for three days. He had some skin disease, so he was in the hospital in Pilsen. There was also a teacher there and he learned a lot of Czech in a month. So, we were able to talk. And I said, I'm going home. He said: ‘Mommy.’ I said: ‘Yes.’ His eyes were full of tears. He was 19 years old, a boy."

  • "In Holýšov, a locomotive was shot. The conductors always took it behind the village, a little bit behind the station, and had it shot there. And so, when they shot it, I said to myself, I'm not going home on foot. So, I packed up and went home in the evening. I took my suitcase, all I had was a suitcase and a package. I went to the train, I had a pass. I had to turn it in every week. I had to turn it in on Monday and come back for it on Saturday, so I didn't turn it in, I kept it. I got to Pilsen, but the train didn't run from Pilsen anymore. Around 10 o'clock a train left Pilsen for Strakonice, for Budějice. So, I waited there for a while. Then they eventually sent a train, but it didn't go to Strakonice, it only went to Horažďovice. And in Horažďovice we had to get off, the train ended there."

  • "Some weren't bad, otherwise they couldn't get to us. Then a foreman came there from Reich from some factory, because even the foremen, even though they were Sudeten, had to go to war. This one was a Sudeten and he knew Czech, badly, but he knew it. So, he wasn't bad, he had a squint in one eye and a glaucoma in the other, so he couldn't see well, so he didn't have to go to the front. But those who were able, they all went and none of them came back."

  • "On February 13, 1942, we had to assemble. A clerk from the labour office took us to Strakonice. We went by train. There were several of us, about six of us from Volyně. In Strakonice, girls from Strakonice and girls from Písek joined us. So, he took us to Pilsen and then from Pilsen to Holýšov. That was the Sudetenland."

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    Čkyně, 20.02.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:15:41
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    Čkyně, 10.04.2022

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    duration: 44:06
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A young man can endure anything

Emilie Vančurová
Emilie Vančurová
photo: Archív pamětnice

Emilie Vančurová, née Marková, was born on 25 December 1921 in the village of Bošice in Šumava. She came from a poor background. Her family had a small farm on where her mother, Marie Marková, née Narovcová, worked. Her father, František Marek, a retired Austrian dragoon, worked as a bricklayer and facade maker after the World War I. After finishing primary school in 1935, Emilie Vančurová had to join the service of a farmer. Between 1942 and 1945 she was totally deployed in the German munitions factory MWH in Holýšov (Holleischen), where aircraft and anti-aircraft munitions were produced. In Holýšov she met Italian and French prisoners of war. In the spring of 1945, she left Holýšov on her own and went home to Bošice. After the liberation, American soldiers stayed with the her family for a few days. In 1947 she married Petr Vančura, with whom she had three children. In 2022 she lived in Čkyně.