Tag Archives: Bohdalov

The Erb

The Pliszka family coat of arms (erb)

In our family we always called it the erb, which is the Czech word for a coat of arms. Ours was painted on heavy paper and framed like a picture: a shield divided in two, red on the left with a gold arrow laid across it, blue on the right with a gold curved sword; above the shield there was a helmet, with red-and-gold and blue mantling, and an arm holding a sword and an arrow. On top, in German, it carried the name of the family and on the bottom, a reference to a heraldic-genealogical archive in Vienna, at Krügerstrasse number 1009, and my father always pointed to that line as the proof that the erb, and our noble origin, were filed and recorded in Vienna.

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The Good Years

After the war we returned to live in our apartment in Prague, since it was still ours, and my mother reopened Modni Salon Linie right away. Her sister teta Pisty came to work there too, managing about 10 seamstresses, while my mother did the women’s dress designs and patterns herself. We also had an au pair, I think her name was Ela, who helped my mother with me and my sister.

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