"I was walking the Wenceslas Square and thinking, what if my mom had lost her memory and was perhaps now looking for me. I was looking at the people, and thus I stayed here."
One of more than six hundred of so-called Winton children, Mrs. Margita Rytířová was born in Prague in 1924. Her parents came from a Jewish non-practicing family; her father had left the religious community. She does not know exactly how in 1939 her parents managed to organize the departure for Great Britain for her and her sister Lenka, who was three years younger. It was probably organized by her uncle, who had already left for Britain before. Together with her sister they left on May 31, 1939. They were living in an English family, isolated from other Czechoslovak children in the Herefordshire County. She attended English school for only one year, then she worked as a babysitter. As soon as it was possible, she joined the army and from 1942 she served as a volunteer in the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force). She served as an electrician in the air force. In spite of her numerous applications, she was transferred to the Czechoslovak No. 310 Squadron only after the war, in June 1945. After the war she worked at the airport in Prague Ruzyně, where she met her husband; in 1951 both of them were fired from their jobs. At first she was unable to find some decent employment, from the mid-1950s she was working at a post office, as a correspondent and as an English proofreader in the Technical Literature Publishing House (SNTL). At present she lives in Zadní Třebáň.
