Alena Tichá

* 1939

  • “We had a good, strict father. He was too strict because those few years spent in concentration camp, when he had to build up the strength to survive it all, the hunger, the illnesses, that hardened him.”

  • “We sat on the bench in the lounge. I remember looking at the black, polished floor, a bit afraid because even my aunt who was with me there was a bit of a stranger to me. Suddenly the door opened and this thin, strange man came out. I look at him suspiciously. He gave me some sour sweets, which I later found out he had gotten from the cleaning lady. Around my neck he hung a little heart on a string, which he had cut out of a toothbrush. I wore that for a long time. He himself wore a leather heart with a cellophane cut-through around his neck, where he had a lock of my hair as a talisman.”

  • “Dad left the concentration camp in Terezín on 9 May. For the most part he walked or hitch-hiked to my grandparents in Prague. He contacted Granddad, who was employed there. The rest of us were in Milovice. He and Granddad then set off to join us in Milovice. I remember how as a five-year-old I sat on the window sill on the look-out for Granddad because it was said he’d be coming from Prague. He was accompanied by an awfully thin, pale gentleman. I went to meet him and called out: ‘Granddad, we were really frightened about you. It’s good that you’re back.’ He said: ‘Alenka, do you know who this man is?’ I said I didn’t. I had photographs of course, and we almost prayed to our father, but I just didn’t remember him at all. But he came home with epidemic typhus, and it was terribly sad for him that his daughter didn’t recognise him at all. Soon afterwards he was in a high fever and they took him to the hospital in Nymburk.”

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Brno, 16.04.2014

    (audio)
    délka: 01:12:50
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

While in prison Dad wore a leather heart with a cellophane cut-through around his neck, where he had a lock of my hair as a talisman

Alena Tichá
Alena Tichá
zdroj: Příběhy našich sousedů

Alena Tichá, née Zarembová, was born on 23 July 1939 in Prague. Her father Oldřich Zaremba was one of the leading figures of the resistance group Defence of the Nation during World War II. In January 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo and subsequently sentenced to three years of prison with the addendum - return undesirable. He was held in various prisons, and even after three years he was not given his freedom. He came home after the liberation of Terezín. He came back starving and sick with typhus. His little daughter Alena had seen him only during a few visits to prison, and she did not recognise him when he returned home. She thought he was a complete stranger. After four years of separation it was very difficult for father and daughter to reconnect. Alena Tichá graduated from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Masaryk University in Brno and then taught at primary and secondary schools for thirty-six years. She currently lives in Brno.