Lenka Kocierzová

„I can’t say that the children would go to school dirty but the truth is, there were many families with eight or nine children who lived in two rooms. Before the children took their turn by the wash basin, some boys might escape the morning ablutions. That was the source for the demeaning checks of ears and fingernails at school. But there was a reason for it. Boys’ collars were checked whether they weren’t dirty. But children are children, we did not care about things we care about now. We were all smudgy. We all lived outside in the yards. Mom came and wiped all the noses with one handkerchief. And we knew each other well, obviously.“

„Unfortunately in about 1954, because there were not flats enough, they divided ours and moved another family in. The flat was still large enough for us. Everything ended because our house stood in the so-called hygienic zone. When I climbed up to the attic, there were two rooms for maids. We had no maids, obviously. I used to go to the attic to steal my brother’s trashy novels about Indians. My first artwork was an Indian with a war bonnet. The attic was wonderful. It’s a pity that we had to move away from there and leave huge chests with old clothes, mainly my grandma’s costumes. She was not only a milliner, she ran a costume rental. There was a Carmen costume and a stunning Haná folk costume which my mother used to wear for festivals. When we had to move out, everything stayed there, we had no place to store it.”