Marie Čondlová

* 1928

  • “The mood was still great, fantastic, when we stood before the gate, the Victory Gate, or how it was called. Chief Provazníková gave us a speech, we were lined up before the performance, it was as if she was saying goodbye. Then she left the country. The atmosphere was amazing, even just the parade through Prague itself. The Communists had seized the place by then. The bigwigs around President Gottwald were there, we marched by, and we all put our heads to the side instead of greeting him and waving. Former president Beneš, who’d abdicated, was behind him, and we shouted: ‘Long live Beneš!’ It was a roar...”

  • “My classmate from Master School of Cabinetmaking came along, he opened the gate to the driveway; he was surprised to see me there. There were three of them, they said they were coming to nationalise the company, Reindl - where was my father? Dad came downstairs, we called up all the workers, and they were told: ‘Comrades, from now on this will be yours, this man has no say here.’ We wrote reports on where the stock was, what was in the loft, what all my father had forgotten to declare. It took a few hours, we left, handed over the keys, and that was that. Then we had a meeting of the factory worker’s union, we discussed what to do with the master, my father. What could be done with the boss: ‘Oh well, let’s hang him.’ The workers said: ‘What are saying? We were glad we could work here, and you want to hang him?’”

  • “At the time there were liberating Americans in Volyně. And they set up their base in our modern school, so we had to live in various private apartments. I lived in a private flat at the time and not with the boys at the residence hall. I remember how the boys were sad because the Americans took off their uniforms, threw them on a heap, burnt them, dressed up in new uniforms, and drove around. That’s how the Americans liberated Volyně near Strakonice. That was the first year of the liberation.”

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    v bytě pamětnice, 12.03.2016

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    délka: 01:10:08
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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To live in honour, decency, humility, and to have a clean conscience

04 - Marie Condlova born Reindlova - 1948
04 - Marie Condlova born Reindlova - 1948
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Marie Čondlová, née Reindlová, was born on 10 April 1928 in Lišov, South Bohemia, into the family of master cabinetmaker František Reindl, the founder of a modern furniture factory and the mayor of the town. She attended lower and upper primary school in Lišov. During the German occupation she experienced several house inspections because of reports lodged against her father. In May 1945 Lišov was liberated by the Red Army. The first Americans came to Volyně, where the witness was studying. In 1947-1949 she trained at the Master School of Cabinetmaking in České Budějovice. She participated in the last All-Sokol Rally in Prague in 1948. Her father‘s company was nationalised after the Communist came to power. So Marie worked as a labourer in the newly established firm Jitona. In 1950 she married; she was on maternity leave and at home until 1953. From 1953 she worked at the South Bohemian Wood Works in České Budějovice and also at the furniture cooperative in Lišov. In 1967 she and her husband moved to Prague; she was employed as a warehouse worker at the Central Bohemian Wood Works. She now (in 2016) lives in her flat in Prague 4.