I lived the stories

Rokycany, Czech RepublicFebruary 24, 1996
Ilona Ferkova,Writer; Coordinator, Rokycany Roman-Czech Kindergarten
I used to hear these stories since I was a little girl. I was told them by my granny. But they were not whole stories: they were only pieces, fragments. And when I was a little girl I wasn’t able to imagine the settlement with Germans around: I couldn’t imagine it. So I always saw the story like a film: it was tied to what I had seen before on television or in the movies.
But then when we were supposed to play the stories in the Stories Exchange Project, suddenly it became familiar to me. I felt comfortable in it. When I was telling the story about my father who was an excellent violinist, I knew it was a story about Ondrej’s grandfather, a story which Ondrej taped by Ondrej. And when I was telling the story, I could see the grandfather in front of my eyes even though I had never seen him. I knew his face only from a picture. But I lived the stories as if I had been there.
I understood more that they suffered, that they were starving. I didn’t see that when I was a little girl, all the misery.
Evaluation Interview
THE STORIES EXCHANGE PROJECT(Phase One: 1994-97)