Anna Novotná

* 1924

  • “We did joinery work with a drill press; our foreman was an old gentleman. Frenchmen, Russians and other nationals were there, and [officers] were really tough on them. Whenever one of us in the machine shop received a parcel from home, we gave a secret signal for the foreigners to come to the cloakroom, and we shared some of what we got with them. Living was really tough for them. I never experienced an air raid, though. And the Nazis were stupid enough to believe that my swollen hand was a work-related injury. In fact, the girls caught a wasp and set it up to sting me. After that, I was in the infirmary for about two weeks. We did whatever we could [to avoid working].”

  • “When it happened, Slovaks would say: ‘Czechs, march to Prague!’ Dad was the first to leave in order to find a place for us to stay. He found sine in Prštné [a Zlín neighbourhood]. It was a single-storey house; the owners added one floor and rented it out. Mum’s sister lived in Padělky [in Zlín] and had no children. They were just two, so we stayed with aunt until the house in Prštné was ready.”

  • “Living was so much tougher than it is today; my parents had little money because just one of them was working. Mum was not employed, but we lived in a spa town, so us children would collect dirty clothes from spa guests in a basket and mum washed them with a washboard. She washed, dried, ironed, and stashed the clothes and we took them back to the customers. A stream ran right next to the house we lived in; it was called Dubový [Oak Stream], and since water was scarce, we had to bring water for washing and rinsing in kegs or buckets.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Zlín, 27.06.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:15:17
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of the region - Central Moravia
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I was 14 years old when we were forced to leave Slovakia

Anna Novotná at the time of recording with Memory of Nation, Zlín, 27 June 2022
Anna Novotná at the time of recording with Memory of Nation, Zlín, 27 June 2022
zdroj: Paměť národa

Anna Novotná, née Vaňková, was born in Piešťany on 15 June 1924. Her father Josef Vaněk made his living as a joiner. He initially worked in Vienna, then in Piešťany where he met Helena née Maráčková. Three children were born. Anna was the middle child. The father was Czech and the mother was Slovak. Anna grew up during the First Republic era; the mother was a housewife, raising the children and making extra money washing clothes on the side. Anna completed her high school education in 1938; the Munich Agreement was signed the same year. Czechs were no longer welcome in Slovakia after the formation of the Slovak State in 1939. The family relocated to Bohemia and settled in Zlín. Anna Novotná worked at Mr Kopecký’s clothes shop and men’s clothes repair workshop, and made shoes at Baťa later on. She was on forced deployment twice in the 1944–1945 period, at first in Zschopau, Germany and then in Nová Paka. She returned home in April 1945. She married Adolf Novotný in 1947, and the couple raised three children. The witness worked at the Rudý říjen national enterprise in Gottwaldov in 1954–1988. She was living in Zlín at the time of recording in 2022.