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We read Samizdat literature [in Czechoslovakia] [21], to this day I still have some magazines from 1968 stored in the cellar. In those days it wasn’t a problem to get them, you could do it. I have them stored away as a memento. The year 1989 [see Velvet Revolution] [22] made us very happy. It was truly unreal, we didn’t imagine that everything would collapse like a house of cards in such a short time. We experienced it with great joy. My mother was still aware of it, at that time she had already had two strokes. She was aware of it, it made her very happy that they returned our house in Zilina in 1991. They returned our building during the first restitutions. By utter chance I had documents about its nationalization at home. My mother, when she came from Zilina to live with us, brought piles of documents with her. One day my husband and I sat down and sorted them out. I threw out many unnecessary documents and papers, but by complete chance I kept the nationalization document. So I didn’t need to run around on its account.
Our building was the second in Zilina to be returned in the restitutions. I had inherited one half and my mother the other. After my mother died the building fell to me. The building stands on the main street. The apartments that were in it don’t exist any more, as even before it was nationalized, the building was being rented out by Modex. [Editor’s note: Modex is a company that manufactures women’s wear. The company has long years of experience in this field. Its history began in 1950, when it was created from a workshop of small Zilina entrepreneurs.] They set up workshops in it, they removed all interior partitions and rebuilt the entire interior. There’s a cafeteria from those days. The building also has two commercial storefronts. One of them is occupied by Dracik [a toy store] and the other by a store with high-end fashions from Trencin. We rent out the space in the building, and that’s how we make a living. Every year we divide up the rent money with our children as well. Of what use would all of it be to just us? I sold the house in the courtyard, where we used to live during the time of the Slovak State. Its interior looks completely different now. What it looked like before the war is something that exists only in my memories.
Our building was the second in Zilina to be returned in the restitutions. I had inherited one half and my mother the other. After my mother died the building fell to me. The building stands on the main street. The apartments that were in it don’t exist any more, as even before it was nationalized, the building was being rented out by Modex. [Editor’s note: Modex is a company that manufactures women’s wear. The company has long years of experience in this field. Its history began in 1950, when it was created from a workshop of small Zilina entrepreneurs.] They set up workshops in it, they removed all interior partitions and rebuilt the entire interior. There’s a cafeteria from those days. The building also has two commercial storefronts. One of them is occupied by Dracik [a toy store] and the other by a store with high-end fashions from Trencin. We rent out the space in the building, and that’s how we make a living. Every year we divide up the rent money with our children as well. Of what use would all of it be to just us? I sold the house in the courtyard, where we used to live during the time of the Slovak State. Its interior looks completely different now. What it looked like before the war is something that exists only in my memories.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Judita Schvalbova