Danna Ottová

* 1928

  • "And when I was older, I had to help regularly, I even helped my mom at home. For example, when we were doing the laundry, I had to help until four o'clock and then I was free. In Bzí, when they came back from the fields, I could go out and play, but otherwise I had to be around the house. My uncle made me a toy cart out of a box. There were also a lot of beads. We used to string the beads. What was not good was used for filling up the roads. So my friend and I would pick out all kinds of beads and string them. I was able to string little flags, too, out of the so-called šmelc - that's what they called the tiny beads - and also little bags. So I helped to string them. That’s how they were making some extra money. You can't understand it, but they had no pension then, nothing. The grain they grew, they put it in the mill and then they went to get bread, I guess they paid something for it too. For breakfast they made this tall pot that was on the stove all the time to keep it warm. It contained ground rye, chicory, and they put goat’s milk in there because using cow’s milk would be a waste. The cow's milk was churned into butter and that was sold. The bread was not buttered. I used to go there all the time and the only time I had bread with butter was on Wednesdays when my aunt was churning it and there were crumbs left in the buttermilk. Otherwise, butter was used as fat because that's all they had. They used to have two pigs, but they always sold them. They didn't slaughter the pigs- they sold what they could to get some money. They didn't spread butter on bread. They put it into coffee and ate it with a big spoon. No, no butter on bread, no!"

  • "That’s how they parted ways and Jedlička’s Institute remained for crippled children, while in Bakule’s Institute there were also crippled children, but Bakule guided them so that they could take care of themselves in every way. He gave them freedom. I remember, for example, Pavel Pouzr, who played volleyball with one leg and one crutch, or Šarkán, who walked with sticks, but even played tennis at one time."

  • "So one boy waylaid my ten-year-old father and suddenly pushed him off the terrace. It was unexpected. The bones in my dad’s legs were injured, but he didn't tell his parents, as it was not the right thing to do in their household. His dad usually solved the boys' disagreements by punishing everyone, he didn’t care who started it. That's the best solution, I used to do that too. About a week later, when my father was coming back from his violin lessons, he suddenly passed out on the way. At that time, if you wanted to go from Slapy to Prague, you had to take a steamboat. My grandfather was almost a half-doctor, because they had a lot of children and he was able to treat them himself, but this time they had to go to Prague by steamboat and then by carriage. They operated on him in Charles Square, but he was healing badly. Since then one of his legs was completely bad and he had chronic inflammation of the bone marrow. He was crippled, limping and it followed him all his life."

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    Praha, 05.06.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 02:04:55
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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Those who did not know them personally could not know how tough, interesting and intelligent

Danna Ottová, ca. 1932
Danna Ottová, ca. 1932
zdroj: Contemporary witness

Danna Ottová, née Jarůšková, was born on February 9, 1928 in Prague into the family of Rudolf and Marie Jarůšek. She had an atypical childhood, because since being born she grew up with her parents in Bakule’s Institute for Education through Life and Work, where disabled children lived. Danna‘s parents met at Jedlička’s Institute, where her father had lived since he was 11 years old, when his leg got damaged as a result of a severe accident. Danna‘s mother had worked there as a helper with the children since she was 15. Around 1920 they both moved with František Bakule to his newly established institute, which was closed in 1933. Danna talks about her childhood spent in the institute and about František Bakule‘s contribution to disabled children and adults. She also recalls the war, which she and her parents lived through in Prague Podolí, and partly with her relatives in the village of Bzí near Železný Brod. In May 1945, they escaped by a hair‘s-breadth a massacre carried out by the Germans on the inhabitants of the house in which they also lived. In 1950, Danna Ottová graduated as a teacher and taught at an elementary school all her life. In 1950, her mother died of cancer; her father outlived her by 34 years. With her husband, Jiří Otta, Danna raised three sons. She was living in Prague in 2023.