Zuzana Marešová

"After the war, my sister Dita and I were walking along Wenceslas Square one day and suddenly we heard a terrible bombing. We flung ourselves on the ground immediately and took normal positions like in London. Then we found out that the Alfa Cinema had a screen facing the street and a war film was on and in it they were dropping the bombs. So I said it was so natural for us but people were walking past us and tapping their foreheads."

"I didn't perceive anything at all except that one day my mum said we were going somewhere or I was going, I don't know. She showed me a book, a sort of a picture board book, with beautiful flowers in it. I loved colorful flowers so much when I was a kid. She was saying, well, where you go, these flowers are blooming there. Then I remember just at the station, when I was on the train."

"My father used to take me up on the roof where we watched the aircrafts fights. I still see it as it was yesterday. I see the allied aircrafts going against the German ones. It was always one heavy bomber and several English small spit fighters around him like wasps. Then we saw that something went on fire up there and then we saw the parachutes going down. They even had the headlights as a part of the anti-aircraft defense. They were searching through the sky and as soon as they spotted some German aircraft another lights were aimed at them in order to get the plane into cross position. Then the spit fighters began their attack."

"One of my friends asked me once for a favor. He had some friends - actually it was a married couple - from India coming to Prague for visit. And he asked me if I could take them for a sightseeing tour in Prague since he didn´t speak any English. I did what he wanted and I didn´t think about it anymore. Week later I was sitting in Bartolomějská street (the former StB office address - translator´s note). There were four men. And then it all began...´So tell us something about yourself.´ What a dumb questions! It took me two hours before I found out that it was all about this woman. I got so furious, I was screaming: ´C´mon, why didn´t you ask me about her right away? Do you have so much free time? ‘I was just so mad. I told them: ´ For God sake, tell me what you want.´ I still didn´t feel like I did something wrong. ´Have you been to some airport by any chance? ´ I told them that we haven´t and described them where exactly we were walking. They said: ´Do you know who were the people? ´ - ´Some friends of my friend.´ - ´It was the wife of Indian governor.´ - ´She didn´t tell me that.´"

"I used to throw away the firebombs from our garden with these two hands. But we did it kind of automatically. When I was in London I have experienced not only the ´blitzkrieg´, but also the V1 and V2 resistances. Everyone in Ealing must have had a shelter on his backyard. I know we have had one and also our neighbors. But they got hit straight into the shelter while they were in and they all died there. At that time mom took us out of the shelter and we spent few nights on our living room floor under the piano. The attacks during the ´Blitzkrieg´ were very intensive - three, four or even five air attacks during the night."

"My other memory is - I think it was at the dock or maybe it was some train station, I don´t know. All I know is that I got lost there again. But this time the place was so crowded that I really got lost there as a child. Later some organizer noticed me; we climbed together on some tower and because he had the speaking trumpet, he was calling out my name. These are sort of glimpses of what people remember, it´s not a lasting memory."

"Was ever someone blaming you for spending the war period in the West?" "Yes, all the time. Some people were joking about it, but the rest of them were blaming us for that. We even heard people saying: ´Other people were in concentration camp, but you´ve survived, you escaped´- we heard this quite often actually. "Was it manifested mainly in words?" "Yes. There were no other manifestations. My mother didn´t understand it at all. She was often taking a pride of England and we had to restrain her a little."

"When my father came back from the prison he closed himself to these impressions. He simply purposely stopped to perceive. He was doing his work, he was taking care of his family - but he forgot about all the other stuff just as if they would have beaten it out of him in jail. He acted like it never happened. He must have felt something though, but he never said a word about it. Unlike before the prison, when he often had a big mouth, now he never had again. He probably must have been very cautious."