Renata Plášková

* 1935

  • “The German front line was crossing us for about three days. I remember when the German soldiers were shooting hares from the kitchen window. There was a meadow nearby and there was a lot of hares, even the deer appeared, because around there were seven or eight different forest districts. The gamekeepers had it divided. And so, the soldiers were shooting hares from the kitchen window. A German soldier took the hares to our mother. She can easily make herself understood because she spoke German. The soldier still wanted her to roast it immediately. She tried to explain him that the hares, just as every game, had to be aged that she would roast them for them in three or four days. He did not want that, said they hadn’t had time, that they need it now. So, she told them that if they skin them, she would roast them for them. They skinned them and brought bare hares to my mom in a bowl. They arranged she will roast them tomorrow early in the morning, so the meat will after all age a little bit. She told them she would wake up in four o’clock in the morning and roast it that they will have it done in the morning that they don’t need to worry. But what happened. My mother already had the hares in the oven and those soldiers were withdrawn, they were already running from the Russians. The hares already smelled beautifully from the oven. We also looked forward to it, we could not wait. And the Russians came, asked what was smelling so nicely at our place, took the roasting pan out of the oven and we started to call the others that there is something tasty. In a moment the hares were gone. We did not even lick our fingers.”

  • “Our grandmother was also Catholic but there was a deviation in her case. She started meeting spiritists. They took me on their seances every week. We went to Doubrava or Ostrava, I don’t know where exactly we went, I don’t remember that. So they took me with them. I had problems at school because of that. When I came to school and we had religious classes, we had these notebooks into which we wrote when we were at the mass and what was the sermon about. And we did vertical or horizontal lines. And my notebook appeared that there were only horizontal lines. The parish priest always asked me, why I don’t go to the church. If I said that I go spiritual seances with my grandmother, they would perhaps lock us up, because it was not allowed. I always mostly look forward to hospitality. The man, at who’s place those seances were held, always prepared good hospitality for the end. The man from Doubrava always had a bowl full of fried donuts outside in the corridor. Oh, god, how it smelled there! I still smell the wonderful aroma. But first, we had to go through the whole séance, which lasted two hours, sometimes hour and half. We always singed, prayed, the spirits were invoked. Before it ended, I would fidget around, I could not take it. I was disturbing. And I was still thinking about the donuts in the corridor. The one who was invoking the spirits said: ‘Someone is disrupting us here.’ That was effective on me, because everyone else was quiet, only I fidgeted. My grandmother then blinked at me, I already knew I should go behind the door. That was the worst punishment for me, because I stood next to the donuts and I was not allowed to take them, I had to wait till it is over. And when I came to school, I had yet another horizontal line. So when the parish priest asked me in school what does it mean, why don’t I go to the confession and masses, when I go to the religious classes, and that I should be encouraged to do so at home. I stood like a pillar o salt. I protected my family. At the same time I would like to tell him so that he would not think I am untalkative or that I don’t want to tell him because I want to resist him. And I was silent. He then said that a bad spirit reside in me in front of the whole class. The boy called me bad spirit till the rest of the year.”

  • "We lived through the war very badly because we were in terrible poverty. We had no food and nothing. My mother was always in charge of the four of us. We were all four at home, it was terrible. We lived in a sublet. Our landlady was very bad. We weren't even allowed to take a windfall from the garden. She said: 'I'll know if you take anything.' She wouldn't even let us tend the garden. She wouldn't give us a piece of the garden, not at all. We weren't allowed to go there."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Ostrava, 24.10.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:59:41
  • 2

    Ostrava, 01.11.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:06:48
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We waited seven years for my father to return from the war. Then he was buried in a mine shaft

Renáta Plášková, 1954
Renáta Plášková, 1954
zdroj: Archiv pamětnice

Renáta Plášková, née Kuczerová, was born on 11 December 1935 in Karviná. After Nazi Germany annexed Cieszyn Silesia to its territory, her father declared Silesian nationality and had to enlist in the Wehrmacht. He did not return until 1947. A few years later, he lost his life at the Barbora mine, where he started working as a miner after returning from English captivity. From an early age, Renáta had to help her mother with the housework and take care of her three younger brothers. During the war she experienced poverty. She saw the execution of German soldiers. At the end of the war, German and Soviet soldiers took turns in their apartment. She worked from the age of 15. Her first job was in a mountain chalet on the Červenohorské sedlo in the Jeseníky Mountains. She married Jindřich Plášek and had a son and a daughter with him. She cooked in the school canteen and then was employed in the Karviná cultural centre until her retirement. She was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), but soon stopped attending meetings and was expelled from the party. In 2022 she lived in Karviná.