Věra Flanderková

* 1941

  • "We also asked for a guarantee. When we wanted to go abroad, we first had to ask for a guarantee that we would get some money, dollars. That was always rejected. We never got anything. Only once, in 1970, when we were still alone, without a child, did we receive a guarantee. Then we asked if we could leave. You had to have a passport and an exit clause, and it had to be applied for again. But our company didn't allow me to because I wasn't eligible. So I went all the way to the director and said: 'Why, if I've already received the guarantee, why don't you let me go somewhere?' We wanted to see Yugoslavia. The director, I still remember to this day, said to me: 'Others deserve it more.' I said to him: 'What about others? I will pay for everything. I don't want anything from anyone. Others are others, and I am me.' When I rebelled a lot, they finally gave me a stamp. We went to Yugoslavia."

  • "It was all strange to me before August 21. Because just before that, we were in Germany, in the GDR, on holiday at our friends in Zittau. The friends, the gentleman, had a private stonemasonry. In the GDR, there were private craftsmen. Our friends told us, 'Just wait. They will occupy you.' And we said, 'Who would occupy us?' 'The forests here are full of Russian soldiers. You're not even allowed to go there, like to Oybin and other places near the border where people like to go.' It was forbidden to go there. No entry. Our friends told us all this 14 days before the Russian troops invaded. They told us that the Russian troops were dug into the forest and ready to invade us. We were terribly surprised. Then we came home and paid no attention to it. We lived normally. We didn't care much about politics. What we heard, we heard. We liked the way Dubček spoke, and we liked it better than the proclamations of other communists. But suddenly, it was August."

  • "I remember that at the end of the war when the Germans were being deported, my father helped three girls who were being deported. For several months, I don't know exactly how long he had those three girls. He brought them from Bílý Kostel from Liberec. They stayed with us for some time before they were deported. They were glad. The one, I'm thinking now, was sent to Dresden somewhere. And about in the fifties or sixties, maybe even later, her son came to us and brought a greeting from her. She remembered that she had lived with my father in Podsemín for a certain period of time. It was nice, pleasant. They commonly lived with us in the family. They mainly helped my mother with housework. It was nice that they remembered it. I guess they liked it. They were happy that my dad helped them."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Turnov, 13.04.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:43:33
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The old miller family of Skála was not broken by the Nazis or the Communists

Photo on graduation tableau, 1959
Photo on graduation tableau, 1959
zdroj: witness archive

Věra Flanderková, née Skálová, was born on 30 June 1941 in Mladá Boleslav. She was born into the important milling family of Skála, who worked at the Podsemínský mill on the Žehrovka River since 1821. In 1942, her sister Ludmila was born. Her mother, Věra Skálová, née Pazderníková, came from a large farm in nearby Malá Lhota. During the war, her father, Jaroslav Skála, brought food to hidden people in the area. Her mother‘s sister, Marie Hieková, ended up in the Ravensbrück concentration camp because her husband, František Hieke, was persecuted by the Gestapo for resistance activities. After the war, the family reunited. František Hieke ended up in a communist prison in the 1950s, and the farm in Malá Lhota was confiscated as part of collectivization. The family of her father‘s sister, Lidmila Vojanová, was also persecuted by the communist regime. The mill in Podsemín was officially stopped by the communists in 1951. The Skála parents worked hard in the unified agricultural cooperatives. After finishing high school, Věra Skálová started working in a food processing factory. In 1962 she married Miroslav Flanderka, and a year later, they moved to Ústí nad Labem. They were not interested in politics. In 1970 their son Miroslav was born. They spent most of their free time in Podsemín, where they moved for retirement in the 1990s. After 25 years, Věra Flanderková was widowed. In 2023 she lived alone in the mill.