Věra Voženílková

* 1935

  • "But they were really very good, but then after the war they were sent to the borderlands - even the priests, all of them. I don't know, if you can remember that, well not remember, you're young, but it was drastic for them. And I went for one more year to the children's home that still stands, the Central Children's Home, we had our school there, a class. And there were these recruitments, in '57 or '58, kids from the school, so three of us signed up for that construction business."

  • "We only had bread for breakfast, but it was dry, it wasn't, butter was rationed. But the nurses just had butter, so I liked to go and wash the dishes, there was leftover butter. I also used to go and get them a beer, a pint of eight, in a pub near there. I was very much involved there. I remember that, but it was nice. And in those Pyšels, that's all I wanted, there were kids there for a week, for a year. If I could ever be there, I wish I could, in the country, but I can't make it."

  • "My mother normally drove with a cart and had me in it and grass for the rabbits, and near Roudnice the car hit her - we lived in Vedomice, where I was born - and she never recovered. I don't remember much about that time, I was only five."

  • Full recordings
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    Praha, 16.04.2024

    (audio)
    duration: 42:11
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I just couldn’t understand that I don’t have a mommy anymore.

Věra Voženílková at the age of seven
Věra Voženílková at the age of seven
photo: archive of the witness

Věra Voženílková, née Weidenthalerová, was born on 19 August 1935 in Roudnice nad Labem. When she was five years old, her mother died tragically. Her father was already advanced in age and decided to put his daughter in an orphanage. She spent the Second World War in the St. Joseph’s Home in Francouzská Street in Prague. In the 1950s, the nuns who ran the children’s home were interned in the borderlands and Věra Voženílková had to go to another institution in Hradčany. She joined Stavoprojekt as an apprentice, worked in the mines for a year and became a bricklayer. Later she worked as a technical draughtswoman. In 2025 she lived in Prague.