If it hadn‘t been for the guerrillas, I would still have my parents and my life might not have been so hard
Jiřina Straková was born on 14 March 1932 in Prlov in the Vsetín region. His parents, Anna and Jan Turýn, had a large farm in the meadows in Prlovy. Since about autumn 1944 the family helped partisans who belonged to the brigade of Jan Zizka. Jiřina was their connection at the age of thirteen years. She informed partisans about the presence of Germans in the village. On Monday, April 23, 1945, the SS troops surrounded the village, burned eight farms and murdered over twenty people who helped guerrillas. Among burnt victims were both her parents. Orphaned Jiřina stayed with her relatives until she was sixteen. Then she worked as a worker in rubber factories for seven years, a former Bata factory in Zlín, which the Communist nationalized. After the wedding she moved to Ostrava-Zábřeh. She had three children. But the marriage was not happy and ended in divorce. Until her retirement she was a cook in the school canteen. She gained the status of a war veteran and a member of the anti-Nazi resistance.