Věra Cinková

* 1941

  • “I know there was one person in charge of overseeing me. He had to monitor what I did and whether I went to church. Later on, he told me he was forced to do it, but he was quite zealous. Then, Pavel was not admitted to high school. He wanted to study at a high school of chemistry in Pardubice. The headmaster told us he had failed the admission test. We went to see the headmaster and he showed us a piece of paper with four boys’ names written on it, maybe one girl’s too. Simply put, he had his orders. It was not a problem to set it up like [Pavel] had failed the test. The headmaster was quite willing to tell us and explain, though he couldn’t say everything. But he did show us the piece of paper with the names on i.”

  • “It was very difficult for teachers. I had to be prepared for teaching all three classes at once and had to take turns with all three within one class. I had to prepare individual assignments for all of them. Once I had instructed them about the day’s topic, I gave them individual assignments and went to teach the next class. In effect, I had to teach three years of study at once within one class. That made preparing for classes really hard.”

  • “My husband was much worse off. He had graduated from Masaryk University in Brno with honours, with a red diploma. But since he was religious, as they used to say back then, he didn’t get a job adequate for his qualification; instead, he got a job in primary school in Červená Voda. He was quite sad about it. We only met four years later. He taught here until 1964 and then he got a job at the grammar school in Králíky, which was somewhat better, but he still had many hours to work in primary school. In 1968, he eventually got a job in Kostelec nad Orlicí, fifty kilometres away. So, he would commute daily – he worked there some thirty-five years. It was a grammar school, then another high school, and finally a business academy.”

  • “I want to tell the younger generations: love each other, love your family and parents, your neighbours and your country, because I think everyone should love their country. And, where you live, help wherever you can and do something to benefit others – not just for yourselves but for others as well.”

  • “I guess our childhood was happy, because even though we were very little and four of us were born only a year apart, we weren’t severely short on anything although our parents were poor. I’d say we were a quite poor family because mum couldn’t work anywhere and dad as a tailor was earning very little. So, we didn’t have much – I don’t remember ever having a doll; not at all. Only my younger sister had a pram and a doll in about 1950. The four of us would play together. We made playing cards out of sketch paper – painted and wrote numerals on them – and we played the cards. But we spent most of the time outdoors; we went out whenever we could and played various games: hide and seek, chasing, and so on. I think my childhood was fine. Our parents didn’t have much time to spend with us, but they would still find some. We never suffered from a lack of their attention or so.”

  • Celé nahrávky
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    Červená Voda, 13.10.2021

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    délka: 01:28:18
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Příběhy regionu - HRK REG ED
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Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I told children that soldiers were there, but not to pay attention to them

Věra Cinková still with her maiden name, Štarmanová. The photo dates back to 1959
Věra Cinková still with her maiden name, Štarmanová. The photo dates back to 1959
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Věra Cinková was born in Jedlí near Zábřeh on 19 September 1941. Her father Josef Štarman (1916–2006) was a tailor and mother Otilie (1921–2008) assisted him as much as she could alongside taking care of the household and seven children. Following Věra, the other children born to the Štarmans were Josef in 1942, Marie in 1943, Růžena in 1945, Jitka in 1950, Eva in 1952, and Marta in 1957. The family moved to Červená Voda in 1945, having purchased a house vacated by the Sudeten Germans. Věra completed the Teaching High School in Olomouc in 1955–1959 and became a teacher for the first stage of primary schools. She started teaching at the dual-class school in Moravský Karlov. She married Josef Cink (1933–2011) in 1961 and three sons were born to them in 1962, 1964, and 1971. As a religious person, the witness’s husband was denied a qualified position, so he worked as a teacher at the primary school in Červená Voda, then at the grammar school in Králíky, and finally at a secondary business school in Kostelec nad Orlicí where he commuted daily from Červená Voda. Věra Cinková started teaching in Červená Voda in 1962 and continued until retirement in 1994. She even helped out teaching after retirement. Following the Velvet Revolution of 1989, she became the first female Mayor of Červená Voda, but went back to teaching after one year. The witness lived in Červená Voda in 2021, working with the elderly of the parish and teaching religion to children.