Milada Rainová

* 1923

  • "And all those who escaped were saved, and those who didn't manage to escape, that was the Řezníček and the officer didn't manage to escape, so the Germans shot everyone who was on the street. And there was also shooting, again I know this from another friend, shooting at the station. There, again, the station men were already handing out shrapnels to everybody, saying that they were going to defend themselves against the Germans again. They already felt that it was over, so the Germans were... so that was the one, he was from Doubravice, so he was just at that station too, I heard the story from him. There were about ten of them, they were daring against the Germans. But then the tanks were coming, and the one who told me said: 'I thought I'd get rid of the shrapnel, drop it discreetly in the grass, so I wouldn't have anything.' Whoever did it saved himself. Whoever kept the shrapnel, they shot him. They also reportedly shot several people at the station. They reportedly lined them up like this, searched them, and whoever they found shrapnel on, they shot them on the spot."

  • "Or then they started cooking. For exapample black dumplings. I remember it might have been a little moldy. I'd put the mouldy bit away and we'd eat it anyway. Yeah, that food wasn't good either. We were hungry. Or we'd go, then when I didn't have to go to school, we'd go to the gardener for carrots. When he pulled the carrots out of the ground, we'd eat them. Dirty! We were so hungry that we didn't care."

  • "Then, when the morning – what is the word – ward rounds were over, they did not pay attention to dad, saying that it was no use examining him anymore, that he wouldn't be here long anyway. And his fellow inmates were arranging who would take his shoes, because he had quite nice shoes and that was rare. And that made him so angry that he decided he wasn't going to die, that he wasn't going to leave those shoes for anybody."

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    Dvůr Králové nad Labem, 14.01.2023

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    délka: 01:48:43
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    Dvůr Králové nad Labem, 21.01.2023

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Whoever kept a shrapnel was shot by the Germans

Milada Rainová, early 1940s
Milada Rainová, early 1940s
zdroj: Archiv pamětníka

Milada Rainová was born on 17 August 1923 in East Bohemia. Her mother Božena, née Valentová, was a housewife, her father František Zejfart worked in a brickyard. Little Milada thus lived her childhood, which she remembers fondly, in the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic. In 1939, she went to Baťov for school and work. There she also lived through the Protectorate. Intense memories of a friend who died in Auschwitz, of falling bombs, of the ever-present hunger and of German soldiers who did not hesitate to shoot people for no apparent reason are linked to this period. In 1952 she married Zdeněk Rain, with whom she raised two daughters. She and her family traveled extensively, and Milada Rainová had the opportunity to visit Yugoslavia, Germany, the Soviet Union, and, towards the end of the 1980s, the United States. She described the regime change in 1989 as a huge change for her life, but one that she was excited about. In 2023, at nearly 100 years old, Milada Rainová lived a self-sufficient and fulfilling life in Dvůr Králové and Labem, often visited by her family.