Jiřina Kotalíková

* 1926

  • “Not even bread was good during the war. Well, it all so… Since we had a small farm, we did have some grain. Well, the crops had to be surrendered, but of course, everyone kept something for themselves. And thus they saved something extra. At night we had to bring the grain to the mill, on a bicycle when it was dark, and the miller immediately exchanged this for flour for us and we rode back home with the flour at night.”

  • “It was an elementary school, which lasted five years, and then this was followed by three years in a higher elementary school, this is what corresponds to the second stage of elementary today. But for those of us who lived in those small villages which were far from the school, attendance was not mandatory and we did not have to go. We were allowed to spend the whole three years in the fourth grade, so to speak. And none of the girls went there. Only the smarter boys from our village continued in the second stage. Well, so I was a kind of pioneer.”

  • “But there was the blackout and everything had to be covered when we turned the light on, and we had to have black curtains, and hard black papers, and not even a small opening in between them was allowed. This was done so that foreign airplanes would not be able to navigate by the light. And if you went outside, it was not allowed to use a torch, and there were no street lamps, and if you wanted to go out with a handheld torch, it had to be covered with a blue foil.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    v Chomutově, 23.11.2016

    (audio)
    délka: 39:08
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

Children, why did not you stay at home, in this weather!

Jiřina Kotalíková as a young woman
Jiřina Kotalíková as a young woman
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Jiřina Kotalíková, née Balíková, was born April 6, 1926. She grew up together with her younger brother in the village Chobot in south-western Bohemia. Their father worked on their small farm and her mother was a seamstress. Jiřina attended elementary school in Černívsko and then a higher elementary school in Blatná. During the war, when she completed her compulsory school education, she had to work as a non-skilled helper in a hotel and in a veterinary‘s office. After the war she married and she moved to Chomutov.