Hana Šebková

“We had a German neighbour, a baker who came here in place of a Czech baker. The name of his family was Preiss and they had no children. Baker Preiss befriended my dad, who could speak German well. They were bringing shoes for repair to us and they talked. One day Mr. Preiss told dad that he was an anti-fascist. Dad asked him how come that he was not on the front. Mr. Preiss said that Hitler would not get him. One day he came to dad and he said: ‘Mr. Dlouhý, the next time you want to listen to the broadcast from London, please, come to me. I am a German, and I live on the first floor. If some stupid fascist walks by your house and hears that you are listening to the London radio, that would be your end.’ Dad was surprised that Mr. Preiss knew that we were listening to the London broadcast. Mr. Preiss said that the opening theme of the London broadcast could be heard from our apartment. He thus said to dad to come to Mr. and Mrs. Preiss because they were listening to London as well. But they were Germans, and they lived on the first floor, and the radio could not be heard from there.”

“A number of new people came here after the war. Some were called gold-diggers. Not everything was as it should be, but they were all happy that the war was over and that the republic would be re-established. But it lasted until February 1948. Dad was then to join the cooperative. Dad and grandpa were both paying their insurance in the Živnostenská Bank. When the bank became nationalized, grandpa, who was already retired, was not eligible for retirement allowance. Dad was forty-five. As a free trader he had been paying his insurance since the age of fourteen, and suddenly he was also told that he was not eligible for retirement allowance. He had to work for twenty-five years more. He had to work until seventy-one in order to complete the twenty-five years and be eligible for a retirement allowance.”