We fled Cheb from the violence of the German mob
Stáhnout obrázek
Marta Samková was born on April 19, 1934 to Václav Cajthaml, an employee of the Czech Citizens Credit Union in Cheb, and his wife Vlasta. At the age of four, she experienced the escape from Cheb in September 1938, when Henlein and German mobs attacked Bohemia. Her father saved the books and the money of the credit union and the family took refuge with relatives in Sebečice in the Rokycany region. She remembers the air raids from the war and the arrival of German civilians fleeing the front, known as „national guests“. Her uncle František Cajthaml was imprisoned in Buchenwald for listening to foreign radio. After the war, the family returned to war-stricken Cheb. As a child she trained in the Sokol and participated in the last All-Sokol meeting in 1948. She graduated from primary school, apprenticed in Aš as a knitter and seamstress, then worked in a spinning mill and finally for many years in the Czechoslovak State Savings Bank. She got married, had three children and lived mainly a family life. She joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The occupation by the Warsaw Pact troops in 1968 found her on holiday - after returning to Cheb, she had to start work immediately due to the panic about the mass withdrawals of deposit books. She worked in a savings bank until her retirement in 1989. In 2024 she was still living in Cheb.
