Jiřina Petřková

Mrs. Jiřina Petřková was born on April 2, 1914 in a Greek Orthodox family. She spent her childhood in Pavlovičky near Olomouc. She studied at a grammar school and a teachers' institute. After graduation she worked in minority schools in Moravská Chrástová and Hrušovany nad Jevišovkou. After the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938, she returned to Olomouc and she taught in the nearby villages. Her brother, Vladimír Petřek, was a Greek Orthodox priest who had studied theology in Yugoslavia. He was involved in the resistance movement during WWII and he helped to hide the paratroopers who had assassinated R. Heydrich. He was executed in September, 1942. Mrs. Jiřina and her family were first imprisoned in Olomouc and subsequently in Brno. In March, 1943, they were transported to Auschwitz. Mrs. Jiřina worked on leveling the ground and later she was separating clothing confiscated from the newly arriving prisoners. Her mother and her sister Milada died in Auschwitz. In August, Jiřina and her sisters were transported to Ravensbrück and shortly after, to Neubrandenburg where she worked in an aircraft factory. In Spring, 1945 she and other prisoners were to leave Neubrandenburg in another transport. In the chaos at the end of the war, the wardens abandoned the transport and the imprisoned women were left free. Mrs. Jiřina returned to Czechoslovakia, settled in Prague and continued to work as a teacher. She died just a day before celebrating her 98th birthday on Sunday April 1, 2012.

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