Věra Fexová

* 1929

  • “I remember waking up on May 1 in the morning and we were looking forward to being off work. I came down, and looking out of the window and saw that there was snow outside. On May 1, 1945, the snow was falling, I remember it by now. As I looked out of the window, I saw a German soldier walking down the street towards us. And he, when he saw me looking out of that window, he started heading to us. I do not know, what he thought. He came and, of course, spoke German asking, if any of us spoke German. My mother did not; well I remembered something from my German classes. So I tried to talk to him. And he explained to me that he came, because they brought in mainly Russian prisoners, who were lodged in the barns of that courtyard, which was at the castle. And he wanted to cook food for them. And he saw a large electrical boiler in our courtyard, where we were cooking for the hens. He wanted me to go with him somewhere, where he could get another pot, so that he would have some food for the prisoner.”

  • “Well then, when there was a rebellion in Prague and the end of war was near, I thought it would happen so that the Germans would run away. I thought the guys guarding those Russian prisoners fled. But then, it's been a couple of years back, when I learned that as the Revolutionary Guards were established, they killed those Germans. They are buried there somewhere outside the cemetery. I did not know that, they did not tell me, I only learnt from a girl, who returned to Brno. She was a sister of my friend, and told me, when she found out. The prisoners lived there until the end of the war. And when the Germans fled or just disappeared, we could take the prisoners home. Because they had to stay there until May 17 and wait for an evacuation to get back home. In order to avoid having to feed them in the buckets, we each took some of them and brought them to our homes. So I brought two Russian prisoners and two Australians back to our home.”

  • “But I was afraid that, if I went [to emigration] my parents would suffer. Because my uncle, father of that cousin who left, one of my mom's brothers, then got locked up. He served ten years in prison. Not due to his son, but here in every district... People who are as old as I am, they do remember. This was all through the republic, in each region a group of people, who were uncomfortable for the new regime, were gathered and were made counter-state, those who worked against the state. And they were locked up for several years and worked in concentration camps, such as in Jáchymov or elsewhere. And they worked there in the mines, just like my two uncles did. One was the youngest brother of my mother, and the other one was his brother, who was the second oldest, whose son had escaped. Amongst other things, they worked in the Jáchymov mine.”

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    Praha, Barrandov, 26.04.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 02:56:23
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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I believe people should help each other

young Věra Lerchová
young Věra Lerchová
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Věra Fexová, née Lerchová, was born on 3 May, 1929 in Velhartice in the Klatovy region, where she spent her youth. In 1944, following the closing of Czech schools, she worked as forced labour in agriculture. At the end of WW2 she used to bring food to the prisoners captured in the castle of Velhartice. Following studies at the school of commerce in Klatovy and graduation in 1948 she considered emigration. Within a construed political process her two uncles were imprisoned and sentenced to serve many years in the Jáchymov prison. The communists did not allow the witness to work in the sphere of education, so she began working in Centrotex and the ministry of foreign trade. After refusing to join the communist party she had to leave the ministry and began working in the Prague office of the Strakonice armoury factory. Following maternity leave she worked in the Czech Radio and the Czech TV. In 1969 her childhood dream came true and she became a teacher at the middle school of commerce in Prague - Vršovice, from where she retired in 1982. Currently she lives in Prague 5 - Barrandov in her family circle.