Jaroslava Melšová

* 1937

  • "We bought a cottage in the Jeseníky Mountains, near Horní Město, Stříbrné Hory, actually near Rýmařov, in May '68. That was a cottage... There were only two because it was a protected landscape area, such beautiful nature. We bought the cottage, and in August, we went there for our first holiday. We had no idea, of course, so I... We didn't even have a radio at the time, because we wanted to enjoy ourselves... But we were there with one friend and her daughter, and now suddenly in the morning, six o'clock, a shepherd - cows were grazing around, heifers and all - so the shepherd was banging on our windows and shouting, 'Wake up, wake up! We're occupied, we're occupied! The occupiers have arrived. We are occupied.' I remember that because we flew out, if by any chance he wasn't drunk or going crazy, there's no way. So we run out and he says, 'It's a disaster, we're being occupied by troops and tanks.' We heard like a... On the road from Rýmařov, it was already buzzing, so my husband immediately got in the car and went to Rýmařov to buy a radio, a small, portable, battery-operated radio. We listened to that, and we already believed we were occupied. So we were crying, we were shocked, we were desperate."

  • "We heard a report that up above the grove, which, in turn, was close to another road that led from Moravský Krumlov, which was eight kilometres away from Ivančice. And that road led to Kounice, Bránice, and then to Brno. So we got a report that they were taking German prisoners there. So, of course, my mother and I... we were always such Samaritans. So we took a bucket of drinking water, a tin cup, and we ran up the road. There was a huge procession of prisoners, huge, but they were all young boys, kids. The last ones that Hitler recruited. We felt really sorry for them because they were ragged, almost barefoot, and very thirsty. So we gave them a cup of water to drink. I don't even know if I should say it. Then one of the neighbours, a very begrudging one, showed up and knocked the cup out of the mouth of one of the boys, so as like he wasn't going to drink. Well, that was it... I know they were Germans, I know it was the war, but these were just boys. It wasn't their fault, and they were thirsty. So this was a pretty horrible, horrible experience for me that I remember a lot."

  • "I remember the end of the war precisely. It was a grand experience. When we got the news they were already in Ivančice... that the war was over and that the Russians were coming. We ran to the garden, we had already left all the shelters, we ran to the garden, and we ran to the road called Na Hrázi because it was by the Jihlava River. A Cossack rode, or flew, on a black horse along the dyke, with a black cloak billowing behind him. It was a breathtaking sight, like in a fairy tale. It was as if a prince had come to liberate us. But he rode through Alexovice somewhere further to other villages, so it was quiet for a while, but then the first wave of soldiers came. They were Mongols, small, tiny. I remember them very well because they settled in Alexovice by the chapel, which is also a precious chapel in Alexovice. They made a kind of camp there. We used to ride our bikes all the time as kids, everywhere, so of course, we went to see them on our bikes. They borrowed the bikes, but they didn't steal them. They wanted us to teach them how to ride the bike. So we taught them how to ride the bikes and we were friends with them, and it was very interesting. It was extremely adventurous for us."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Ostrava, 27.10.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:49:02
  • 2

    Ostrava, 10.11.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 01:49:22
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

To experience war is the worst thing that can happen to a person

Jaroslava Melšová, 2021
Jaroslava Melšová, 2021
zdroj: Post Bellum

Jaroslava Melšová, née Missbachová, was born on 30 May 1937 in the South Moravian village of Alexovice. During the Second World War, her father, Karel Missbach, was forced to labour in Most. Her mother, Marie Missbach, was left alone to care for her two daughters. She was worried about them because of possible air raids, so from 1944, they hid in the shelters near the village. By the end of the war, the whole family lived together. In May 1945, they had to accommodate four Soviet officers. After the liberation, a group of captured, impoverished Germans passed through Alexovice. Jaroslava Melšová and her mother brought them water to drink. Since her father was a communist, she did not perceive the February 1948 coup negatively. At the beginning of the 1950s, she studied at a higher vocational chemistry school in Brno. After graduation, she joined the Fotochema company and later worked at the Komárov foundry in Brno. In January 1960, she married Josef Melša. In March of that year, they moved to Ostrava. They both worked at the Klement Gottwald New Steelworks. She experienced the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops while staying at a cottage in the Jeseníky Mountains. During normalisation she worked at the Energy Institute of the State Energy Inspectorate. In 2021 she lived in Ostrava-Poruba.