Jana Sůvová

* 1942

  • "So in the end, we learned that I could get to study, if my parents found a school that would not be afraid to accept me. And then my mother, girls, she walked on foot from Wenceslas Square, Příkopy, Poříčí through the district of Karlín and visited every school and asked everywhere if they would take me. She had my report card with the best grades. Nowhere did she succeed. And then she came to the eleven-grade school in Liben next to the chateau. There was the director, such a tiny little Jewish woman with a tattooed number, Mrs. Ilsa Maršalková. And she said, "Mrs. Špačková, and why can't your daughter go to school?" Now she saw my school reports with only the best grades all the way from the first grade until the graduation. So my mother said that we had a certain property in Horní Počernice and that my father had a noble title and that was the cause. And the headmistress went to the drawer and took out the application and said, "Let your daughter send the application here." Because she wasn't afraid, because she survived war in the concentration camp."

  • "He was taken straight from work to the forced labour camp in Jáchymov. It was not a prison, nor were the people there convicted by the courts, but only by a five-member commission at the district national committee. He was picked up at the post office in Prague in Klimentská Street. They took him away and we didn't know about him, I was already seven at the time, I was six and a half years old, so of course I perceived it. We found out that my father was in Jáchymov only after a few weeks and he was there for a year and a quarter - in Jáchymov, in Pardubice, in Ústí nad Labem. Without any trial, none at all. And when he was released, he said, 'Well, I don't have a single piece of paper that you somehow condemned me for being interned here. It's just a year and a quarter of my life that went down the gutters; I don't have any confirmation from you. 'And the clerk who gave him back his ID just replied:' Mr. Špaček, just be glad you got out alive.'"

  • "I applied to university and no longer to where I originally intended to medicine, but then I chose economics at the Faculty of Agriculture, which was basically very little subsidized by students. Nevertheless, it was worth the long journey for our school inspector from the district national committee, who was from Horní Počernice, his name was Mr. Brácha. He arrived, had me called up to the director's office, sent the director away, and said, 'Look, you shouldn't have gotten here with your family background at all, and if you don't withdraw the application, we won't let you graduate.' At that time, I and my parents got pretty scared off by that threat. It was the year 1959, we didn't even know what could happen to us. We were terribly scared, so I withdrew my application. And now what? They sent me to work as a turner at the company Avia, eventhough I got the best grades."

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    Horní Počernice, 11.01.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 27:03
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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They sent me to train as a turner, although I graduated with all the best marks

Jana Špačková in 1959 - photo from the graduation board
Jana Špačková in 1959 - photo from the graduation board
zdroj: archiv pamětnice

Jana Sůvová, née Špačková, was born on January 8, 1942 in Prague. Her family owned extensive property in Horní Počernice. Because of this, they were persecuted after 1948, their lands were confiscated by the communists, and Jana‘s father was arrested by the state police and taken to Jáchymov. He was released after a year and a quarter. Due to her family history, Jana had problems getting to high school, but in the end she managed to find a grammar school in Liben, where she was accepted. She had to withdraw her application for university and she had to start as a lathe operator. In the end, she managed to secure a job at the Construction of Highways and Roads, and she also completed her university at a distance. She then worked as an accountant. In 2022 she lived in Prague.