“In 1938, well, it was still quite peaceful, you know. We nicely performed our exercise, the feeling was beautiful, really. Full of that national, how to say it, such a national and Sokol unity. I did not feel that something awful would be going to happen. In 1948, it was wor… well, worse. It was just, at that time, I did not perform the exercises, I was already in the women‘s category. Mainly, I think, I had no time to practise. Yeah, really, I probably did not have time to attend the practices but I served as a medic in the first aid tent. And I was thus present when Marie Provazníková, the main chief of Sokol, was saying her goodbyes. And she said, it was at the end, when there was the last exercise performed, she said that, and I’ll say it in plain words, that they pressed a knife to her neck. Either they’ll jail her or she has to move out of the country. So she said her goodbyes and told us that she was going to America. And she left for America. It was in 1948. And we all cried.”
„When they announced it on the radio, how they crossed the borders, us who went to school the morning, we saw nothing. But then, we arrived to school and by then, we all knew it and we all were feeling crappy about it. We felt like crying and then Miss came. The Czech language teacher was young and very capable, the classes with her were beautiful. She sat to her table and wanted to give such a… so she started… like, that this is not final, that it is not possible, this, and that we can expect that in the future, the Republic will be back. So she started like this but the poor soul did not finish what she wanted to say because she sat at her table and then she started crying. And all of us students then started crying.”
"Don’t even remind me of this… It was awful… but what could we do… It was the worst thing about it, that helplessness… And I wasn’t one of those who would be able to go and do something… I was not that sort of person. We were all feeling bad about that and what I remember is that often, I would come to the kitchen in the morning and how mom had puffy eyes from crying because she had listened [to the radio]. Because that’s what the Nazi scoundrels took great care to announce neatly whom they had executed. That was the first broadcast in the morning and whenever she heard a familiar name, she cried. And I felt very concerned about it but there was nothing we could do. Everyone was scared and who says they were not, it’s baloney. But then sure, there were people from our side who worked for them a little bit but it was really rare. I’d say otherwise, we as a nation stuck together, we had this feeling of belonging and patriotism which later then, nowadays for example, especially at this time, I sometimes miss a bit… On the other side, the scoundrel deserved to be done away with."
Danuše Soumarová, née Provazníková, was born on the 22nd se narodila 30. dubna 1922 ve Vojkovicích nad Ohří. Her father was a train dispatcher and because of his job, the family moved several times. During the Protectorate, they lived in Hradec Kralove, Danuse graduated from a girls’ high school here in 1941. She recalls the events related to the German annexation of the Czechoslovak border areas during the autumn of 1938, the occupation of what was left of Czechoslovakia in March of the following year and the times that followed the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. After having graduated from high school, she desired to study medicine but the universities were closed so she needed to wait until June 1945 when they opened again. During WWII, she worked as a volunteer in hospital and as a clerk at the railway headquarters. Just after the end of WWII, she enrolled to the medical faculty of Charles University where she graduated in 1950. She got her first job experience as a physician in the hospital in Cheb, from where the German-speaking inhabitants had been expelled and which was severely damaged during the war. She chose to specialise in pediatrics. In Cheb, she met her future husband, Dr Josef Soumar. After marriage and parental leave, she started to work in Náchod and short time later, the nearby Červený Kostelec, where she worked until her retirement. Even when she was very young, she accepted the responsibility for health, and often lives of her child patients in the difficult time after the end of WWII. There was a major shortage of physicians and in the border adjacent areas, it was even worse. Many of her patients remember her as a doctor who helped wherever she was needed, regardless whether it was inconveniencing her. Danuše Soumarová died on February 14, 2024.
Danuše Soumarová when she studied at the high school in Hradec Králové. The photograph was taken in 1945 and it shows Danuše, her girlfriend, and a soldier of the U. S. army.
Danuše Soumarová when she studied at the high school in Hradec Králové. The photograph was taken in 1945 and it shows Danuše, her girlfriend, and a soldier of the U. S. army.
Anatomy lecture for students of medical school in Prague after the WWII. There were so many students that some of the lectures took place in the Evangelical Church in Vršovice.
Anatomy lecture for students of medical school in Prague after the WWII. There were so many students that some of the lectures took place in the Evangelical Church in Vršovice.
