Marie Štráchalová

* 1946

  • "It was also said about your mother that she was very defiant even during the trial?" "Yes, my mother was very defiant. She knew she had done nothing wrong, lived a decent life, took care of three children. What they demanded of her, she simply did not approve of them. That too at the court in České Budějovice... That's what my cousin told me, because he and my mother talked about it very closely. He was also older, the cousin, a lot from me, and he was quite interested in the conditions in the criminal world and the trials, how they were conducted. So, my mother told him that they abused her so much at the court in České Budějovice that she turned around, turned her back to the judge and slapped her ass and didn't talk to him at all. He warned her there that she would not return home. Mom said: "Yes, I won't return, but I know I told the truth. Perhaps someone will take care of the children. I won't take it back, but I know I told the truth.' She was really stubborn and stood her ground. Until the last moment.” “So even in that process she didn't do what they asked, didn't admit anything?” “Never, what was good for them, my mom never did anything like that. Most of all, she did not admit to them what they wanted to hear from her. They told her a lie, a straight lie, during the interrogations. So, she told them, I won't accede to your conditions. She even said to one there: 'Bring a log, I'll lay my head here, my children will make it, but I'll give my head the truth.' So, they knew they couldn't do anything with her. Still, she got seven years and dad eight."

  • "I say, Jarko, come and say goodbye. Jarka no, she was already such a young lady, she was already afraid, she was about to be 11 years old, she was already like that. Vašíček was tiny, he was always clinging to me. And I just went to see my dad to say goodbye. From behind. They were sitting with their backs to us, the irons on their hands. And that I will say goodbye. That one State Security officer took me, threw me, I flew from my father from the table to the door. There I ran into a staple, cut my head open and bit my tongue. And then Vašíček went and he said: Dad, where are these gentlemen taking you and why do you have those handcuffs on your hands? Where are these gentlemen taking you? Mom then said how good-looking and polite he was, he didn't call them pigs, but he said, "Where are the gentlemen taking you?"

  • "On the shore, the fisherman, who went with a friend, went fishing and threw the rod into the water. As they threw the rod into the water, they somehow hooked his sweater, he had a knitted sweater with three white stripes. So, they hooked his sweater. The one calls to the other, come help me, I'm pulling something, I don't know what at all. It's kind of hard. Well, as there were layers of mud on him, so it took a while to get it out of the mud, so it took a bit of work. When it was visible afterwards, he said, it must be the little boy of those arrested parents, who drowned in that Zábrdí. So, they came for me. I arrived there, he had already been pulled out, he was lying on the shore. If he was somehow wet, only his feet were wet, his face was still pretty, he didn't even have any stains, there were no stains on his face, he didn't have that at all, just his feet were wet. I said yes, that he is my brother. So, they brought him to Lažiště to the morgue and we had to get the suit, we were just giving him the suit, we dressed him in the morgue. We dressed him in the suit that is in the photo. The shorts, the shorts and the jacket. We had to use pantyhose, as the seam is, so there we cut it open. He is buried in Lažiště in the cemetery in the grave of the Šebeks, where he was, but his parents were not allowed to go to the funeral. Only the Záblatí kindergarten went to the funeral, which we used to attend, everyone from Záblatí, from Drslavice, everyone who knew us was at the funeral. But mom and dad were not. So, it was a rough life, rough. I don't know at all who could watch this and why, why my parents had to suffer. For what? It was unbelievable what punishment met us and what we had to undergo. It seems that it is not possible to be made through, that it cannot be made through. What did I live through? I have known... since childhood I have only known misfortune. I went from family to family, each family brought me up differently, in their own way. I just listened and I have nothing to remember, I've never experienced anything nice."

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    České Budějovice, 17.08.2020

    (audio)
    délka: 02:10:00
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    České Budějovice, 15.06.2021

    (audio)
    délka: 58:29
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The communists broke up my family

Marie Štráchalová (1952)
Marie Štráchalová (1952)
zdroj: archive of the witness

Marie Štráchalová, born Pavelková, was born on August 31, 1946 in Prachatice. She grew up with her older sister Jaroslava and her younger brother Václav in Záblatí near Prachatice. In 1952, State Security arrested Marie‘s parents Marie and Adolf Pavelka, and in a Kangaroo court, the communists sentenced them to seven and eight years. During her parents‘ stay in prison, the witness grew up with her relatives, separated from her siblings. Her brother Václav drowned in 1954. From 1957, after the parents‘ return from prison, the Pavelkas lived together again in Vimperk. Marie trained to be a seamstress and worked in a textile company. In 1968, she married Miroslav Jelínek, and their son Miroslav was born the following spring. Since 1969, the witness lived in Kolínec in the West Bohemian Region. She worked in hospitality industry. In 2003, her son Miroslav died in a traffic accident. Marie got divorced and moved to Vimperk. In 2006, she married Vlastimil Štráchal. In 2021, Marie Štráchalová lived in Vimperk.