Evžénie Škubalová

* 1934

  • "We lived in an apartment house, on the first floor. There was a shop, a grocery store, below us. The shopkeeper lived on the fourth floor. He came and said he would address people from our balcony. Mum wouldn't let him, but he had his way, because she was alone and people took advantage of her because of that. He talked and talked, and basically nothing happened to him, but on 2 May, twenty-one people were arrested here and executed them in Lazce. I don't know why that was, but we go there every year to commemorate it. That's my memory of 2 May. The war ended only on the fifth or so in Prague, but the uprising started here in Přerov. I was eleven years old."

  • "We lived all in one room, and father said in the evening, 'If they haven't taken me now, they won't take me.' He used to go to work on Saturdays, and he didn't come back one day. That was the end. Mum was allowed to see him in prison here in Přerov afterwards. He wanted some clothes, so I know she brought him a T-shirt and a coat. Then they took them to Olomouc. She brought him bread there because she learned they had nothing to eat. Then he was in the Kounic Halls, and she didn't go there. We got a letter from there. And he went to Auschwitz from the Kounic Halls. He lived for ten more months after his arrest. Then we received a death certificate and a parcel from Auschwitz with his keys, coat, that T-shirt, and even his wedding ring. That surprised mum a lot."

  • "At least, I have the graduation certificate, but I didn't get the recommendation letter. I talked freely about how things were during the war, how Štěpán Klein who owned a soda water plant supported us; he ended up badly, he used to sit in a wheelchair by the window at home. I don't know how he ended life. He helped us. Father Bílek, I remember him coming to visit us. I don't know if he gave us money or food, not knowing is better sometimes. That's how we survived. And, because I said that my mother voted for National Socialists instead of Communists - you had to vote for 1, or 2, or 3, or 4 at the time - she didn't want me to take the graduation exam."

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    Přerov, 07.12.2012

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They even sent the wedding ring from Auschwitz

Evžénie Škubalová (née Skočovská) as a child
Evžénie Škubalová (née Skočovská) as a child
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Evžénie Škubalová, née Skočovská, was born in Přerov in 1934. Her father Josef Skočovský was involved in the resistance movement at Optikotechna, a company in Přerov. He was arrested in February 1942, imprisoned in Přerov and in Kounic Halls in Brno, and then taken to Auschwitz where he perished on 9 November 1942. After that, the family was supported by friends, many of whom were members of the Czech National Socialist Party. Several of them were sentenced to many years of imprisonment by the communist regime in staged trials after February 1948. The witness now lives in Přerov.