Family visits from West Germany

In the era of the Iron Curtain, Anette Neff would travel from West Germany to Jemnice in order to visit members of her family who had remained there after the end of World War II. Originally from Dačice, (formerly “Datschitz” in German), the family now lives in Jemnice. She remembers her childhood visits in Jemnice very well, as well as the problems she – being a West-German girl – encountered there: “When I walked around the village without my grandma and tried to ask somebody for something, they’d mostly turn me down. When I asked them if they spoke German, I usually got no information in return.” In addition to the problems with which she was confronted in Jemnice, she also remembers the feelings evoked by the border that led right outside of the village limits. “We would see army jeeps driving along the border every day, as well as soldiers with barking shepherd dogs guarding the border. We saw that every day because the village was so close to the border. It was no comforting sight.” Even today, she regularly comes back to Jemnice to see her family there. The heavily guarded border has long since disappeared.