Helena Dufková

* 1936

  • "(Pastor Ignác Černík) was very popular, so during the communist reign, I don't know in which year, it was said that he had to leave. However, he did not want to give up his position. I don't know how the people found out, it was in the evening when they came for the priest. People who knew about it ran around the village, banging on people's windows, telling them to go and defend the priest, that they wanted to kidnap him. People gathered in front of the vicarage, the pastor somehow managed to escape through the back door, there was still a garden, so he somehow escaped there. Then he was said to be hiding with someone, and years later we learned that he was in Argentina."

  • "I don't know how the people in the village knew at that time that someone was dying and leaving, they called not the doctor, but the priest. He came with the minister, the minister walked in front of the priest and rang the bell. Everyone they met knelt down and prayed for the dying man. The parish priest came to the dying man, gave him a blessing and left. When a person died, he was usually at home for two or three days, depending on the weather. Candles were lit near him and all the aunties from the neighborhood came to pray to him. I went to pray with my mother and I always had to say goodbye to the dead by shaking his hand. As a child I always wondered why his hand was so cold."

  • "On Good Friday, we used to go to the stream to wash, me, my mother and my brother. I will never forget that picture, the sight of people kneeling on the bank of the stream, washing themselves with water and all praying." - "Was that a custom?" - "Yes, it was a Catholic custom. They said: 'Water, clean, cold, clear, you flow from Jerusalem from the Lord Christ, you wash the banks, the roots, wash me too, sinful creature.' And then we washed our hands and face and took the water in the kettle for the grandmother, who was old to wash herself too."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Zlín, 27.06.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:04:57
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
  • 2

    Zlín, 29.06.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 40:27
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

When they took the cows away from us, my mother ran to cry to our backyard

Helena Dufková during the filming for Memory of Nations, Zlín, 2022
Helena Dufková during the filming for Memory of Nations, Zlín, 2022
zdroj: Memory of Nations

Helena Dufková, née Dufková, was born on March 10, 1936 in Hluk u Uherského Hradiště as the middle of three children to Jan and Františka Dufková. Her mother had a small farm, her father commuted to work in Zlín, where he worked at the company Baťa. The mother was strongly religious and raised her children in this spirit, the father was a member of the local Orel jednota. Helena also went to Orel as a child. After the communists came to power, the family‘s farm was confiscated as part of collectivization, their cows were taken away and the fields were transferred to the state farm. At that time, her father was already working at the Autopal factory in Hluk. In order for the children to go to school, he went to work in the Ostrava mines. Helena Dufková graduated from a high school of nursing, majoring in midwifery. She finished her studies with a high school diploma in 1954. In 1953, the family lost their savings intended for the children‘s studies during the currency reform. A few months before graduation, as a newly eighteen-year-old, she married Jaroslav Dufka, who later worked at Stavoprojekt Gottwaldov. They raised two children together. Helena Dufková worked as a midwife, a pediatrician‘s nurse in Zlín (Gottwaldov), a senior nurse in a home for the elderly in Lukov and in the Burešov home. In 2022, she lived in Zlín.