“There was a Czechoslovak constable walking along, and behind him suddenly some fifteen or twenty columns of German soldiers. My dad said: ‘Please, can you tell us what this is about?’ He said: ‘Mr Bárta, they’re just passing through.’ That wasn’t true, the Germans were already occupying us. Because when we came to school on 15 March, right next door, by the Přívoz train station, was the Little Berlin quarter, where the Germans lived. That was two-storey cooperative housing. And that they were well prepared was clear from the fact that this Little Berlin was immediately covered in German flags. That means they were already prepared for it.”
“Danuška went with Granddad to the Přívoz station. Granddad had all the papers. Rit [the dog] was well trained. I’ll never forget that. [We] came to the station, there was a man there in the uniform of a German officer and another man, who lived three houses down the street from us. In just a little house. Now Granddad came up to them and said: ‘Good day.’ The bloke’s name was Zavadinský, and he said: ‘Well then, old Bárta? One of yours’s pegged it in Mauthausen, where I sent him, and they’ll send the second one there soon enough. He’s at the krajzák [the Regional Court - transl.].’ The moment he said that, Rit jumped and caught him. He wouldn’t have bitten him. He was trained and he knew that the man was speaking ill of his master. The Reich German was afraid the dog’d bite him, so he shot him. A silent shot. You couldn’t hear it. Rit fell to ground and I broke out crying. Granddad stepped on my foot, and the man said: ‘Pick up your rubbish.’ Meaning the papers from Rit. Granddad couldn’t move so well, so I collected it up for him. We went to the church in Přívoz. I said: ‘Granddad, that was our Rit.’ Granddad said: ‘Danuška, did you hear what he said about uncle Tonda and your father Bedřich? He’s the snitch.’ We hadn’t known who had told on Dad, but he told us himself.”
“When the Germans occupied us, they brought with them a load of flunkeys, who took everything. Furniture and the such. They wanted our flat. Next door to us there lived an old Jewish couple, the Kohnhäusers, very honourable and kind people. They had a daughter in their late age, she was my classmate. Her name was Betynka. Betynka longed to have a brother. So he was born just when the Germans occupied us. The worst thing was that a truck came up, Mrs Kohnhäuserová was forty-nine years old with a little boy, and they took that baby into the truck; they took the babies, the little Jewish children, and threw them all in. That was here in Ostrava, [on] Na Spojce [street]. And then the next house, a kind of round one, that’s where the Linsner Jews lived. The husband was an officer of the Czechoslovak army, and he left to secure passage to England for themselves and the little one. But instead of that, the Germans took Mrs Linsnerová’s child and threw it in as well. They took their old parents to Auschwitz, they never returned. But those were such kind and honourable people.”
“The worst thing was that there was a German family living in our house, the Koblížeks. They arrested Mr Koblížek as a collaborator and traitor. Dad wasn’t there, he would’ve stopped it. They took Mr Koblížek and forced him out and into a military truck. Mr Koblížek jumped out of the truck and was run over by a tank. He was a good German, he kept watch for my dad when he listened to foreign radio. The Czechs were the worst. The Koblížeks didn’t have any children and they had a beautifully furnished two-room flat. The Sochoreks, Czechs, the husband was a managing clerk at Budoucnost. They had money, they hadn’t suffered during the war, and they came and started taking away the porcelain and other things. Porcelain, furs, and other things. That was so hideous. Mrs Koblížková then came to me and said: ‘Danuška, come and choose something as a keepsake. I won’t live without my husband.’ They had a lovely, harmonious marriage. Mrs Koblížková killed herself. They just came to evict her from the flat and...”
Danuše Lelitová, née Bártová, was born on 18 July 1926 in Ostrava-Přívoz. Her family was closely linked with the Sokol sports movement and First-Republic ideals. Therefore, during the occupation, her father Bedřich Bárta and other members of the family joined the resistance. Her father ended up in a Nazi prison for several weeks, and her uncle Antonín Bárta died in Mauthausen concentration camp on 12 February 1942. Danuše Lelitová witnessed many other arrests during the war. The Gestapo took away her class teacher from the girls‘ school she attended, later on they also interned her teachers from the business academy, and also her Jewish neighbours. After 1948, when the Communist Party came to power, her father was persecuted again for participating in the Sokol resistance. As the daughter of a former Sokol functionary, Danuše Lelitová supposedly also had problems with the Communist regime.
