Věra Ničová

* 1939

  • "My great grandfather from Litomyšl was a very passionate communist, and so was my grandmother. It was said in our family that she would get into fights with the police during strikes. Grandfather was a communist until the monetary reform came along. That was the end of it. Because the day before on the radio they said: 'No, there won't be a monetary reform, no, definitely not.' I don't know which president it was, probably Zápotocky, they all lied. Well, we didn't care, we had nothing. But some acquaintances, who had saved up a million and wanted to buy a publishing house, lost all of it. And my grandfather, who didn't have a million, but lost a few Crowns on his shoemaking, felt the same. For him the few Crowns were the same as a million for richer people, so they recalculated it for him and he had nothing left either. And that was the end for him."

  • "I grew up in Prague, they were in Holice. Grandma would send us a package of pies or some kind of pastries quite often. She sent us fruit, sometimes there were eggs hidden in the flour - they were a rare commodity during and after the war. And sometimes grandpa would come visit us, grandma never did. She was quite strong and it would be difficult for her to get on the train, on those little steps. We were always very much looking forward to her packages, but we were never allowed to cut open the strings. I remember that to this day people make fun of me when I say: 'Don't cut it, don't cut it, we'll untie it, it's a waste of string otherwise.' Grandpa would wrap the package so that it would arrive in one piece, so the string would wrap two or three times around the width and also lengthwise, everywhere at every intersection there was a knot, a proper one. But, in addition to teaching us how to economize, it was wonderful that we had to overcome the terrible desire to just go straight at it. And little by little, the bundle would come undone, then the string was wound up, then the paper was properly unwrapped, it was folded, and only then could we open the package."

  • "And my mother remembered, my first mother, how she had suffered at school. That the teacher really bullied her there. She would always be standing at the front of the class as punishment, he would show her off like a wild animal, because on the one hand she was poor: they lived in a poorhouse (like the houses for shephards that used to be in villages) and secondly they were communists. So the teacher would always find something. Well, at 45, the teacher became a communist and was beating other children. He was a case, they should have fired him at some point.”

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    Vrchlabí, 04.03.2023

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I suppose it’s impossible to eliminate human stupidity

Věra Ničová in 1985
Věra Ničová in 1985
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Věra Ničová, née Urbanová, was born on February 11, 1939 in Prague into a family with significant artistic talent. With the support of Vojta Náprstek, her grandfather Rudolf Urban studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, her father, Ladislav Urban, poet, nature illustrator and painter, was friends with V. Holan, I. Olbracht, and S. K. Neumann. He collaborated with his daughter Věra and son Ladislav, for example, on illustrations for the Pocket Guide to Mushrooms and a publication dedicated to medicinal plants. After graduating from a secondary school of applied arts, Věra Ničová got married, moved to Vrchlabí, and within six years, the Nič family included three children. She studied teaching for primary schools at the Teacher Training Institute in Hradec Králové and at the same time led art classes for children in the Vrchlabí region, taught drawing at the Folk Art School (LŠU) in Trutnov and at a grammar school in Vrchlabí. She is the author of a number of publications devoted to plants in general, herbs, herbariums, and flora of the Krkonoše region, which were published in many languages. She successfully exhibited her watercolour and oil paintings of flowers several times. Věra Ničová has lived in Vrchlabí for more than 60 years. In 2021, she was awarded the Award of the Director of the Krkonoše National Park Administration (KRNAP) and the Audience Award.