I was born in Prerov on Sep 2, 1920 to Joseph Tomanek from the village of Jankovice and Frantiska Tomankova née Pavlickova from Zeranovice. The former was an engine driver and then a train master, the latter a housewife. Also my older brother Joseph Tomanek born in Prerov on Mar 12, 1918 must have leaned over my duvet. I experienced many nice moments as well as the ones of siblings´ teasing and he was still remembered with love.
We lived at 29 Ztracena St, Prerov. We slept together on a wooden flour box till my age of three and explored the Nature in a garden. Our father had planted fruit trees and our mother grew vegetables and flowers there. In addition she kept goats, pigs, hens, geese and later also a cow.
I attended the Na Sirave Cloister Elementary School for six years. My brother called by us at home Joe used to walk along the Susilova St towards an Elementary School situated in the Square..
Since my early years I have been able to remember my parents´hiring two fields. The one nicknamed ´in black´ due to black soil was behind a cemetery and the second at a railway track. They grew rye, beet, potatoes and maize there. We walked as far as the fields and hauled a cart loaded with crops and other things home. We had to help our father in the field, but Joe worked only a little and preferred flying his model planes instead. As a little girl I was angry with that. Though my father allowed my brother to do so I had to assist.
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Tomanek family + Joe and his model plane
As I can remember my brother liked drawing from his childhood and this hobby was done by him till his early death. As a younger sister I was teased by him from time to time. I was infuriated most by his drawing carricatures of mine. Following the decades I admit of course he must have been bothered from time to time by looking after his younger sister. He wanted to spend time with his friends who nicknamed him Tom. The close ones were Albin Nasswetter and Karel Danihelka that time. Collecting stamps and reading the ´Little Reader´ and later ´Adventurous World´magazines were my brother´s further hobbies.
As siblings we often teased each other and once a rather dramatic event ensued. I stood on a bank of the Becva river at a chappel in Prerov while Joe and his friends were having their bath. He nettled me again and again that I would not dive. So I replied ´You ox I would´. I dived and started getting drowned. Nowadays I am alive only thanks to my brother who pulled me out of water in time. Aged about eleven ie in 1929 Joe furthered his studies at an eight-grade Grammar School in Prerov. He might have done not well at school, because he was preferrably employed by his hobbies of drawing and painting. There are carricatures of teachers and other pictures, above all planes in Joe´s notebook still kept by me. Here may be one of his Maths teacher dated Dec 3, 1937. In addition my brother became hobbyist in something new – flying. I can not remember where Joe came across flying for the first time, because nobody in our family felt so inclined. I suppose at school or in his Scout group. Either some pilots came there or took the kids to the Prerov airfield. My brother launched his gliding particularly in this airfield.
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Masaryk´s Flying League Prerov - in the glider by Jan Hrbek + His Maths teacher
Due to my brother´s not doing well at the Prerov Grammar School he swapped for a Comprehensive School at Lipnik upon Becva from the 1933/34 school year. He attended a IV.B class there and started his gliding in the Olomouc Flying Club. Our family moved to Olomouc in 1937. My parents, above all my mother were afraid of my brother´s flying. I can remember my brother´s not returning home from the Olomouc airfield for long hours one day. My mother´s lamenting on my brother´s turning into ´Fillushka´s small bones made my father go and look for him in the airfield. My brother was found by him while socializing with his friends in a new hangar. Our mother had a rough time with us but she also liked foxing us now and then. My brother paid a visit to his friend called Rzihhoshek often. Returning back from their flat one day prior to Christmass Joe complained. ´His mother had had two casseroles of baked sweets and we still had none´. My mum replied nothing and not shortly before Chrismass let us see a casserole full of sweets. I have no idea when it had been made by her. She must have made them at nights.
..Possibly in the spring 1937 I was invited by my brother to the airfield to show me his flying skills. I can remember his friends´ waving at his plane mid-air and chanting a rhyme :´OK LOM airborne is Tom´ Then I was offered by him a trip. We flew a red aircraft of the Zlin XII type over the Holly Hill nr Olomouc. In purpose Joe changed altitude rapidly amused by my squeaking. I can also remember Joe´s friend Victor Popelka who sold apples in the ASO Department Store at that time. The advertisment slogan ´ Do not waste money do shopping at ASO´ was my brother´s brainchild. His further friends were Lostak and Zahradnik but their first names slipped of my memory. Joe participated in Flying competitions too. One of them a ´Little Entente´ Race was won by him in 1937. His recollections of that were later put on paper by him and called ´As we took part in No III National Flight´
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Third National Flying Competition + Little Entente Flight
My brother must have been sold on flying because his two friends who had met their deaths crashing in fog into the hillside of the Carpathian Mts during this race were mentioned by Joe in this text. Despite this incident he was not discouraged from furthering his flying.
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For an OK-LOK´s crew + Badge of Uzgorod
In 1938 aged eighteen I was sent by my parents to the village of Cervena Voda in a Jesenik county to acquire command of German there. For the fist time I met my later husband Jaroslav Suk there. My stay took not a half year and I had to return home. In accordance with the Munich Agreement Czechoslovakia had to cede its border areas to Germany. My brother got conscripted and served at the Olomouc airbase as a pilot. I saw him for the last time in autumn 1938 when he said Good Bye to us and went and fought the Nazi Germany. I remember Joe was wearing a coat, a grey checkered shirt and a hat while leaving.
During WWII we moved to Josefov ie No II District of the town of Jaromer due to rumours of my brother´s leaving his Motherland and fighting the Third Reich. I remember my husband´s recollecting to be addressed by a Secret Police agent in an ASO department store. The agent started questioning whether my husband knew Mr Popelka etc. While residing to Jaromer we experienced a Gestapo Secret Police´s home search. My daughter Ludmila was several months old. Luckilly nothing ´suspicious´ was found by them. We knew nothing of my brother during the whole war. We learned of the date of his death and its circumstances from the authorities following the end of hostilities. We found out something of Joe´s escapades from the letters having been sent by him to his aunt who had lived in the US. While working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a secretary our father´s sister Anna Mikova met her husband-to-be at that time there. In one of these letters my brother recollected of his travelling via all the North Africa having left his Motherland. We learned from other sources that Joe arrived at Istres in South France and afterwards to UK. He was a No 311 Bomber Sqn´s pilot there It is the aunt who sent Joe a so missed Czech-English dictionary to England from the US. Joe´s friends recall he pursued painting, above all landscapes. On Dec 28, 1941 my brother took off from the East Wreatham action station for his last sortie. As a co-pilot of the T2553 KX-B Wellinton bomber. The target Wilhelmshaven in Germany. The ship was captained by Sgt. Alois Siska, crewed by a navigator F/O Josef Mohr, a W/O F/O Josef Scerba, a front gunner Sgt. Pavel Svoboda and a rear one Sgt. Rudolf Skalicky. They were hit on the same day and ditched in the North Sea, about midway from the shores of England. Skalicky died on the ship´s impact with concrete-hard surface of the sea. The others spent six days on minimum food and no sweet water in cold waters of the North Sea. On Jan 2, 1942 totally exhausted Josef Tomanek passed away. He was burried in the sea by his comrades. Having no idea meanwhile an interesting event occured by coincidence on Jan 2, 1942. On the same day as my brother died the grandfather´s clock in my parents´ kitchen stopped working. It was extraordinary. Three days later – on Jan 5, 1942 – my father Josef Tomanek died. Without knowing each other´s fates, both passed away early January 1942. My brother Joe was posthumously awarded the Cz Medal for Valour. Though aged ninety three I still suffer from his death. He was a man of cheer and gift . But the Lucky Token drawn by him during his comprehensive school´s studies did not meet Joe Tomanek Jr in time. like in case of many others.
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Ctverak stesti ie Lucky Token + Don´t crazy, man, I am a courier !