Zlatuše Kosňovská

* 1934

  • “I remember we were at the station where they put us in freight wagons. Moms stayed at the station. There was chaos. Mothers were crying, the kids were leaving and didn't know where. Fortunately, my sisters and I came to the then Czechoslovakia. We were in Mariánské Lázně. We were in those wagons for a week, maybe longer, so we were in a terrible condition. Unwashed, lousy. There we got a haircut, wrapped in blankets and took the buses to the children's home. I was in Planá near Mariánské Lázně. Sisters, because they were younger, had to go to a different shelter separately.”

  • “I'm Chrysula Jalama. When I got married, I took my husband´s surname Kosňovská. But often everyone wondered what kind of name Chrysula was for not being in the calendar. Just for the peace of mind I thought I'd be renamed. When we ran, we had no birth certificate, no documentation. So I had my birth certificate made in Brno, where I was attending the training school. The gentleman paused that the name was different and suggested if I wanted to have it translated into Czech. Chrysula, Chryso means gold in Greek, so they wrote to me that I could be called Zlata nebo Zlatuše. I chose Zlatuše and I wrote Zlatuše Kosňovská in my birth certificate.”

  • “Once we were hiding, a neighbor suddenly knocked and said, 'Elpida, what else are you doing here? Everyone left, take the kids and run! ‘So our mom took us by the hand and we ran. We joined a bunch of people who ran too. My grandmother, the poor thing, told the mother to let her one child, that she would not leave home. She said that even if anything happened, she wouldn't leave home. But we were running. We came to the Yugoslav border, it was close. The Yugoslav army did not know whether to let us pass us or not. We stood there waiting for them to get commanded to let us cross the border. So we passed on. Then we were in the room, lying on the floor. My mother couldn't take anything. We were there for about two weeks and then we went to a town in Yugoslavia where the Greeks were gathered.”

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    Ostrava, 06.11.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 01:22:15
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I was leaving on a freight train and my mother was crying

Zlatuše Kosňovská, portrait 2 in 1950s
Zlatuše Kosňovská, portrait 2 in 1950s
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Zlatuše Kosňovská was born on 19 July 1934 in a small village in the Florina district of Greece. Her childhood name was Chrysula Jalama. She grew up in a poor family, which made a living from agriculture. When a civil war broke out in Greece in 1946, her father left to fight for left-wing guerrilla troops. Her mother was often questioned by the police. Near the village, where they lived, there were fights between guerrillas and government troops. During one of the attacks, she and her mother and two sisters fled to Yugoslavia. She was chosen among the children of the Greek guerrillas, who were then assisted by a European socialist country. She got to Czechoslovakia. She grew up in a children‘s shelter in Planá near Mariánské Lázně, her sisters were placed in a children‘s shelter near Opava. For several years she knew nothing of the fate of her mother and father, and later both of them also came to Czechoslovakia. She studied in the field of electromechanics for railways. Until she received the documents at the vocational school, she had not known exactly when she was born, had no nationality, passport or birth certificate. The official who handled her documents suggested that she change the Greek name Chrysula to the Czech name Zlatuše. Chryso in Greek means gold. She got married and since then she became Zlatuše Kosňovská. She had two children. All her life she worked for Czech Railways in Ostrava. In retirement she became active in the association of the Greek Community of Ostrava, where she takes care of seniors from Greece.