Helena Velichová

* 1941

  • "We had to give to those communists whatever they chose. When we threshed out for the winter, many sacks of wheat, they collected it there... We still had to, I don't know, not every year, but every other year, we had to give them some cow to kill, to eat. So that's how the communists were. I entered that communist time. I captured that time, it was misery, it was bad, but we were in the village, so what did manage - a potato and some clover, we didn't starve. There were a lot of us at my parents' house, there were five of us, and we still had an old grandmother, she also lived with us for so many years."

  • "My sweetheart used to come to see me and suddenly, one night, his dad and mom came there to ask me to marry him. I was still young and stupid, but they needed someone to come and work. Herd cows, dig in the fields. He had another brother, and he died. He had another younger brother, he was still in school. And I was good at herding and digging, I had to do everything. No one said I wasn't going to go there or I wasn't going to do this or I didn't want to do that... Everything. What there was to do was to dig and to rake hay. The men chopped it and together we had to make stacks. Make stacks, prepare for winter for four or five cattle. That had to be prepared."

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Šumice, 14.09.2023

    (audio)
    délka: 01:22:37
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The women here suffered and did not get divorced. Marriage was often decided by parents

Helena Velichová v roce 2023
Helena Velichová v roce 2023
zdroj: Paměť národa

Helena Velichová (Velich in Romanian), née Kalinová, was born on 10 September 1941 in the Czech village of Šumice in the Romanian Banat. She grew up in a Catholic peasant family, her parents were František and Matylda Kalina. Her father earned his living repairing shoes. From her early childhood, she had to be involved in farm work. During the communist regime in Romania, they had to compulsorily hand over agricultural supplies to the state. She started school after the Second World War and completed four grades there, eventually working in a dairy factory in Jablanice (Iablanița). She married at the age of 15, the marriage was arranged by her parents. The couple then left the village for several years to work in agriculture in the Romanian village of Berliște, near Oravița. Two sons were born to them, who later went to the cities. However, the Velichs refused to move from the village and did not agree to sell off the farm. Helena Velichová lived in Šumice at the time of filming (September 2023).