Eva Lízalková

* 1925

  • “I had a booth on the first floor of the pavilion, and there was a stage with a piano above it. [Musician and actor] Jiří Šlitr would come and practice playing the piano. He would perform concerts there, and was very popular. Girls from various countries approached me and asked me to arrange a date with him for them. He was dating Sylva Daníčková at the time, though, and was to marry her, but he never did; he died tragically. Šlitr was a friend of mine and we would chat. The stage was quite large and a man in overalls would tinker with stuff in the back all the time. I noticed him one time and asked him what he was doing. He said he was repairing something. I was okay with that and Šlitr and I would chat on merrily; it was very nice. He played the piano beautifully, and I told him I could play the piano too, but he was not allowed to let me play it. When the Expo was about to end, I met the guy who would tinker with stuff in the background. He approached me, maybe it was his conscience, and said: ‘Do you know what I was actually doing? I was in charge of you; I would spy on you. You and Šlitr. You have no idea of how the StB watches over anybody who travels outside the country. I know your every word. If you said anything [wrong], you’d be sent home immediately. You are lucky because you spoke in such general terms – about music and Šlitr’s dreams, and how he wanted to go to the Broadway. I was listening to you. You never said anything problematic, so I didn’t have to tell on you. I’m telling you now, so be careful and remember that it’s not easy.’”

  • “We thought we were safe, now that they’d stolen everything. But a Russian came over some three days later, he looked a bit Mongolian. He opened the gate, entered our yard and yelled: ‘Watches! Watches!’ My mum was really angry, she was not scared and said they’d stolen everything and there were no more watches. He understood. He said Russian soldiers never steal, took out his gun and wanted to shoot her. It scared me; I jumped in front of her and said: ‘Shoot us both if you must.’ That stopped him; he put the gun away and said he’d come back in the night to sort it out. I was scared and went to report it to their headquarters. The major who was in charge said he knew him and would take care of it. That Russian never came back, so we stayed alive. Later on, I learned that they took him to Hranice and shot him because he was the worst of them all.”

  • “When the Russians came, they asked the people who could speak Russian about who lived where and what they owned. Someone told them they could find something in our place. So, someone rang the doorbell at 10 pm on a weekday. My brother answered the door, and six Russians came in with automatic rifles. They put us in one rooms, five Russians stayed there with us, the guns in their hands, and the sixth one pointed the gun at my brother’s back and ordered to show him round. He took everything that was of any value. When they left, we e had nothing, not even my student watch that had been on the bedside table. They would wear six watches at once, they called them “chasy”, and they could never get enough. They took everything; mostly gold and jewels. When they had taken all of that, they went to the pantry where we kept supplies from the pig-killing – pots of lard, smoked pork, and so on. Everybody had that in the village. They grabbed the pots of lard, took the meat, slurped the eggs raw, stomped the egg shells into the ground and left. They would have taken our car as well, but the Nazis had taken the tires away before, so it was immobile, and the Russians left it. When they left, the house was left virtually empty. Of course, the furniture stayed, but everything of any value was gone.”

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    Liberec, 09.02.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:25:23
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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The communists took everything from us; my mother was homeless

Eva Lízalková at EXPO 58 in Brussels
Eva Lízalková at EXPO 58 in Brussels
zdroj: Archiv pamětnice

Eva Lízalková was born in Prostějov on 20 December 1925 into the family of the majority shareholder and chief executive officer of the mechanised brickworks in Prosenice. She registered as a student of French, History and Music at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in 1945. Later on, she took a six-month course in international trade with teachers such as Jan Masaryk and Prokop Drtina. After her father’s death, the government nationalised the family’s brickworks in 1946 and the Vykoukals lost their home two years later. When it became obvious that the witness would not be allowed to pursue a career in her field, she decided to marry. Later on, she joined the Autorenova company in Prague-Holešovice for financial reasons, working as a router operator. Thanks to her excellent knowledge of three global languages, she managed to get to the Expo 58 in Brussels despite her unfavourable ‘cadre profile’, and she sold Czech garnets and musical records in the Czechoslovak pavilion from March to November 1958. Upon returning, she got a job at Skloexport in Liberec where she worked at the sales department until retiring in 1982. She lived in Liberec at the time of recording in 2023.