"I was here at the school in the parents' association at the time, and the children of rubber factory employees were supposed to be admitted to college, but then the principal said, 'Well, the district committee was here and they said we shouldn't recommend it. And I said, 'Did they say we shouldn't, or that we mustn't?' 'No, he said we shouldn't.' 'Then we'll let him go.' So we let the gifted boy go to grammar school. The principal was fired for it, and they told my daughter not to count on going to school anywhere."
"The one servant working for the major who lived with us told my mother that one day we would turn against them. And we assured them that could never happen, that we were terribly grateful for what they had done for us. He was terribly afraid that his boss would hear him, which we found very strange. He told us that he couldn't shoot at people, that he was an English teacher and worked as a servant for the major, for whom he always cooked rice and canned food."
"We rushed into the basement very quickly, and it took several attempts—they flew over and then another batch. I had a little fox terrier, and he wasn't with us in the basement, so I needed to find him somewhere. My mother didn't want to let me go upstairs, but I managed to do it anyway. The dog had peed himself on the stairs, so I quickly grabbed him and dragged him into the cellar."
Blanka Matějková, née Holubcová, was born on December 31, 1931, in Horní Branná. In 1934, her family moved to Kralupy nad Vltavou. They lived there throughout World War II and survived the Allied bombing of Kralupy at the end of the war. After liberation in May 1945, Soviet officers stayed with the family, and her mother struck up a conversation with one of their servants, who spoke candidly about the situation in the Soviet Union. Blanka wanted to study pharmacy, but was unable to do so due to her personnel file. So she started working at the Kralupy sugar factory and finished school while working. She suffered severe burns in the laboratory, but still managed to finish college. She started working in a laboratory where she worked with rubber until 1991, when her husband died in a car accident. In the 1990s, she taught at a vocational school and a grammar school, and then helped out in a laboratory in Nelahozeves. In 2025, she lived in Kralupy nad Vltavou.
