Libuše Přibová

* 1925

  • “One day I walked over the yard and a big car arrived there. My former classmate got out of that car among other people. I went to her and asked her: ‘Libuška, what are you doing here?’ Her name was Libuška Sedlaříková, I still remember it even now. She said: ‘Don’t speak to me or they will arrest you too.’ I thus realized that she was… Before that, I had not paid much attention to it, because the transports were dispatched from another part of the train station – the people had to assemble in storehouses in the cargo section, whereas I worked in commercial transportation. When I saw her in that storehouse, I rushed through the train station to the butcher’s in Hybernská Street. There was a long line of people. I begged them: ‘Please, my classmate is going to a concentration camp, give me something for her to eat.’ All the people made way for me and the butcher gave me a salami. Well, he did take my food ration stamp for that. Then I returned to the n.1 storehouse. I saw some man in a blue-grey uniform standing there, and if I remember correctly, I went to him, and I told him, in German, of course, if he would be so kind to let me in because my classmate was there and I wanted to give her some food. He pretended he didn’t hear me. I went to Libuška and she told me: ‘Please, call my sister.’ I replied: ‘You need to wait, I have to fetch a pencil and paper to write down the telephone number.’ I went to the office upstairs and grabbed some paper and pencil and I went back to her and began writing the number. Several other people asked me to get their phone numbers, too, and I was then calling from the office upstairs to their friends or relatives.”

  • “One day as I was walking away from a train, some man followed me and he started questioning me what I had been doing there and throwing there. I was scared to death, and I told him that I had thrown some food and cigarettes there. He eventually gave me a packet of cigarettes and told me to give it to the next transport. He thus unnerved me so much for nothing. Of course, I was afraid, but when this eventually turned out all right, I went to the next transport, too. The people were already in the train cars, and as I was approaching the train I noticed two young guys in uniform. I came to them and said: ‘Please, turn around.’ They wondered why and I said: ‘There are people I know, and I want to throw them something.’ They really did walk away some twenty steps towards the main hall and away from the train, and I could thus throw the things to the people. Well, so that’s probably all.”

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    v Praze, 24.02.2014

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Memory of the Nation: stories from Praha 2
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I trusted my instinct

IMG_3994.JPG (historic)
Libuše Přibová
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

  Libuše Přibová, née Svobodová, the younger of two sisters, was born April 15, 1925. Her family lived in Hostomice pod Brdy and they enjoyed great respect from their neighbours. Her father was the chief of the Butchers‘ Guild in Hořovice, the head of the local Sokol sports organization and he also held a position in the city council. Her mother worked in a shop. After completing higher elementary, Libuše went on to study a three-year specialised school for girls‘ vocations in Prague, and then she also simultaneously studied a trade academy while she began working. For four years, until 1938, she was going to the border regions in order to learn German. In mid-1943 she started working as a first-grade worker in the Hybernská train station (present-day Masaryk station), where her duty was registering trains. She spent most of the following year on sick leave due to a complicated leg fracture, and afterwards she continued working at the train station for couple more years. She witnessed transports to concentration camps during the war. When she later voiced her disapproval with the Victorious February during the political purges, she was forced to leave the railway company and she began working in the accounting office of the National Land Fund. Before retiring, she also worked for some time in the Concert Agency and in the Czech Fund for Fine Arts. After 1989 she was earning an extra income by providing accommodation to German-speaking tourists. She was a member of the junior choir of the Czech Radio and she played the piano and violin. She has been a loyal Sokol member all her life. She married twice and she has one son.