I’ll never forget the sound when the planes bombed us that afternoon
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Marie Kolářová, née Varmouzková, was born on 25 November 1927 in Kuřim. Her family was rich and tended to a large farm. When World War II started, the family was forced to leave their house and move into the cellar. The house was seized by the German army. Marie and her sister Eva continued to work on the farm and served the German officers. During the war an enormous construction project for factories and workers’ accommodation was launched in Kuřim. The village became a prime target for Allied bombing raids. Marie Kolářová and her whole family witnessed several air raids on Kuřim. The biggest one took place in 1944, when the Kuřim arms factory was targeted with three attack waves comprising several hundred bombs. Towards the end of the war the Germans began to flee from Kuřim, and the German officers left the Varmouzeks’ house. The town was also abandoned by the local German landowners, whom the witness’s family had good relations. Instead, the family farm was occupied by the Red Army. After the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC) came to the fore. Oldřich, Marie’s husband, joined the CPC after the war. He had been assigned to forced labour in Berlin during WW2, and so he fell for the Communists promises and joined their ranks. The witness tried to talk him out of it, but her husband kept to his decision, he endeavoured to achieve a better position at work, and so he had no choice but to become a Party member. Marie Kolářová spent all her professional life as an accountant. She now lives in Kuřim, she has a daughter and two grandchildren.
