Marie Husová

* 1927

  • "Back then when my husband was sentenced, I went to see the attorney-at-law to ask him whether he could give him some creams for his eczema. He told me that if my husband had been a worker, he'd have been acquitted. But because he was an officer who let the country down, he got sentenced." - "What was he found guilty of? Knowing what was happening?" - "That he didn't turn mum in and therefore let down the republic."

  • "This was the worst thing of all: Jáchymov. It was a camp out in the fields, or rather a wooden building. They brought in the inmates from one side and we entered from the other side. I don't even know how they got them in because we hadn't seen them. The visit in itself was also a terrible experience. There was a glass wall, a couple chairs or benches, the prisoners were seated and so were we but there was the wall in between us. We couldn't even hear each other well."

  • "We took the tram to Prašný most where we found a tank parked on the tracks. The driver told us: 'I can't go on, a tank is standing there.' As they were driving in from the airport, a tank got stuck on the track. Me and my husband had gotten out and went in the direction downtown through the Prague Castle. We were stopped by the Russians who said: 'No way you are getting here.' We got to Klárov where we found cannons facing the Castle. We crossed the bridge towards Staroměstské náměstí, it was full of soldiers. I used to work in Dlážděná street. My husband was walking with me all that time. I made it to Dlážděná and everyone was like: 'What the heck are you doing here?!' I said: 'I thought I had to come to work.' This was who I was back then."

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    Praha , 02.08.2016

    (audio)
    délka: 02:05:10
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Memory of nations (in co-production with Czech television)
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Mum was a rather defiant person and spent some time in solitary confinement

Marie Husová
Marie Husová
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Marie Husová, née Kalfusová, was born on 23 August 1927 in Bystřice near Benešov. Her father had spent most of the money from a family farm on drinking and her mother had to work hard to make ends meet. When she was ten, Marie moved to Vlašim with her mum, who worked in the local ammunition factory. The family house was used as a shelter for relatives displaced after the 1938 Munich Agreement. Marie‘s father died of a terminal disease in 1942 and was buried in Prague. After the war, Marie and her mum moved to Litvínov. Her mother Anna Kalfusová found a job in a lodging house, Marie worked in the Labour Office where she was in charge of employment in Stalin‘s Plants. There, she got to know her future husband Stanislav Husa. They got married in 1951, she gave birth to a daughter Alena and they were able to rent a house in Litvínov. In 1954, her mother was sentenced to eight years in prison for high treason because she helped people cross the border to Germany. Her husband Stanislav was also tried and for helping people escape the country sent to forced labour at the Jáchymov uranium mines. He was released two and a half years later. The family then spent several years living at Stanislav‘s mother in Prague before finally building a house of their own in Suchdol. Anna Kalfusová moved in with them following her release in 1959. She passed away in 1992.