Sociocultural Psychology on the Regional Scale by Tania Zittoun

Author:Tania Zittoun
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030330668
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Once assembled there, the families received orders to leave, and so they went, through the next village, pass the border and to Austria, where they survived in more or less difficult conditions. However, while already waiting on this square, Zdenka’s family suddenly obtained the right to stay at the last minute – again, “der Onkle hat auch geholfen”, the uncle helped again.23 The uncle intervened again towards the authorities in charge, reminding them that Zdenka’s father was a Czech, and that he did not commit any bad action during the war. His position was thus examined and enough people, his employees and others, spoke in his favour; the family could thus go back home. However, the father eventually lost his job as a state of employee for having been a German during the war, and so the family had to leave the house. The father, who had been quite foreseeing, had bought another farmhouse in the village nearby for his retirement, where the family could move.

The uncle himself, a German, had enough Czech employees that he treated well and who spoke for him, so that he could remain for some time after the war. However, pressure was made upon his German wife and her family. Not wanting to separate, after having arranged the fishery of which he was in charge, he eventually left the country a few months later through an epic escape with wife, mother-in-law and chicken in a small car.24 Extremely respected in his trade, he was offered a prestigious position in nearby Austria, where he played an important role in the development of the fish ponds.

Finally, a last element (learnt off-record) is that Zdenka’s brother, who had been conscripted as a German soldier, had been missing as he was on the front in Norway; the family had been informed of it during the war, but it was just after the war that the uncle tried to enquire about it, in vain. He was, thus, considered dead; Zdenka hardly speaks of him.

In summary, the end of the war was again an even of collective importance and a turning point in the country’s and Europe’s history. It also had direct consequences in the everyday life of Sandra and Zdenka. In both cases, their origins were again pinpointed and stigmatised, together with that of millions of others; both also learnt the loss of a brother. In Sandra’s case, the end of the war was marking, but the aggression came from a minority in the village and she found the support of her community to avoid it. More remarkably, the doubt on her origin had as consequence the more important research for official papers, by which she discovered her family history and realised that the two nice uncles were two older brothers. On Zdenka’s side, she had to be parted from her uncle, and, then, the family experienced the traumatic mass deportation and was expecting to lose everything – until the last-minute intervention of the uncle, creating conditions of exception for the family.

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