Vladimír Korčák

“We knew that he was imprisoned in the Pankrác prison, but only Gestapo could issue a permit to visit him. That meant that we had to go to the Petschek Palace, the headquarters of the Prague Gestapo. The massive building of the former bank is located on the corner of present-day Opletal Street and the Political Prisoners Street. Today it is difficult to describe the feelings of anxiety, fear, hatred and desire for revenge that we felt just by looking at the place where, as we well knew, the Gestapo was interrogating and torturing hundreds of our people, often for trivial reasons. Sometimes just for few words. When I already made the decision, I had to overcome those feelings and I also had to come up with a reason why I requested to visit him. The only idea that I had was that we did not know where our parents had placed the slip from the laundry shop. I could not think of anything better. Armed only with my weak knowledge of grammar school German I set out to the centre of the Nazi reign of terror. With my stomach tight, I entered the palace. There was an SS man in a black uniform with a submachine gun standing on each side immediately behind the entrance. There was a third one sitting by a desk and I had to tell him why I had come. They sent me to the left on the ground floor.”