“When the politics and occupation did not impact us directly, the life was pretty much normal, although it was, of course, far from normal. There were, namely at the end of the war, everyday alarms, raids — there were two on Prague. This naturally had to influence the life in a certain way. Besides that we lived the normal life of boys. I well remember what problems there were with sourcing of food. As a town child, I felt certain handicap. I remember, for instance, that I regularly took bread to school for snack — well, if you could call it a bread. It was rather a past, which turned sour the very next day because it was full of water. And with it I usually had pear jam, which was made in the summer and we ate it through winer. Fat, margarine — it was incomparable to today’s margarines — it was horrible artificial fat. Eggs were nonexistent in the city. Only exceptionally some could be obtained in the black market. I also remember that my dad once got a prescription for me… he pretended that I was in danger of tuberculosis and received — if I am not mistaken — a ration of seven eggs per month. The cook then used them to prepare meals. So we were influenced by this. Other than that the life was pretty normal — the life of little boys.”
“It meant knowing what happened to our family during the war, but also the joy of liberation. I well remember some of the events from the immediately post-uprising times, some of which were not pleasant at all, but that is perhaps the reason why they stayed in my memory. I saw an SS-man hanging upside down on a lamp-post, and burned to death alive, and I have retained this memory ever since, same as I do recall humiliation of German population. It must have been terrible and our father, whenever he was around, always took us away — these are experiences you retain throughout your life, that you never forget and our father wanted to spare us them.”
“In fact I became the brother of two exiled citizens for which I was, naturally, persecuted. This was one of the reasons, I was told, that I was not able to defend my PhD thesis — due to the emigration of my brothers. So it had an impact on our lives indeed. Just opposite our house there is this wall, which delineates the former churchyard of St Michal’s Church in Opatovická street, belonging to the Lutheran church. When my brothers left the country, there was this camera installed on the wall, which monitored the entry into our house. There was always a plain-clothes policeman. When he stood there more often, we greeted friendly. We all made fun of it, in a certain way, to escape this darkness.”
“Politics as such played no role in my life then. The Munich Treaty or things like that went past me and I have absolutely no memories of it. But I do remember some events, such as the occupation of March 15, 1939, since we were on the embankment and watched the passing German troops. It was very bleak weather — snow and rain, if I remember well. And I perceived it very negatively, that is why I remember it. And I remember the later events, influenced by the Heydrichiad.”
“From Theresienstadt, where they were just temporarily, mum wrote to my address a correspondence letter three times. I remember that daddy woke me up at night, so that my younger brothers would not know, to write her back. She could receive a German letter. But I reckon she actually received none of our replies, as understood from her next correspondence.“
Jaroslav Ort was born on 21 November, 1931 in Prague as the oldest of three brothers. His father was a doctor and got engaged in a catholic church, while his mother Ludmila, born Sonnevendová, and her family was of an orthodox religion. Parent´s marriage was divorced and the sons remained with the father. Jaroslav Ort and his brothers regularly visited the mother, who remarried to Josef Ryšavý, and also the granddad on mother´s part, Jan Sonnevend. Since May 1942 he helped a group of parachutists, who attempted an assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. From his native Haná he maintained food for them and as a head of a council of elderly he negotiated hiding of parachutists in a crypt of St. Cyril and Method church in Resslova street in Prague. After spying out a network of helpers the mother and granddad were arrested in June 1942. Jan Sonnevend was executed on 4 September, 1942. The mother got through the Small fortress in Theresienstadt to a concentration camp Mauthausen, where she was also executed in October 1942. The witness could continue studying gymnasium. His explanation for not being repressed was the fact that his father worked as a surgeon and a large part of his clientele were Germans.
