Thomas Thun

"In 1919 the world sort of ended for our family. But my great-grandfather Jaroslav was a great realist and when asked by his younger son, my uncle Ernst, whether he should join the Czech army, he replied: 'Of course. We are not happy with the new leadership, but as the Bible says - render to Caesar what is Caesar's - so of course you shall join the army.' And my grandfather could choose whether or not to become a reserve officer in the Czech army. He accepted, and they were both called up in 1938 during the mobilisation. Uncle Ernst was very active in the army, commanding a motorised unit - and there is a funny story to that. During the mobilisation he had his men march in at 5 o'clock in the morning on Wallenstein Square in Prague. Then the commands were shouted and a window opened in Wallenstein Palace and an old woman, whose name I can't remember now, shouted: 'Damn you! Why are you making such a racket in the morning?!' So my uncle sent his aide upstairs to calm her down... Well, yes, I mean, had there been a war then, they would both have fought on the Czech side."

"Leaving aside the horrible experience immediately after the Russians arrived... At that time, the family hid in Kristin Hrádek, a hunting lodge near the Saxon border, believing that the Russians would not find them there. But of course they found them immediately - and they did what they usually did when young women were in the house. A horrid experience. But after that the family did relatively well. Though, they had to wear white armbands and do forced labour. Even my aunt Teresa, who was sixteen, had to pull the railway tracks. But it was nothing extreme and nobody was beaten or anything like that. Perhaps the fact that the Czech ambassador in London was a relative of ours - one of the Lobkowiczs - helped."

"One more thing comes to my mind: my father died when he was the same age as I am now, 72. Had he lived longer, we could have had a very good and intense conversation about it. He was always telling us: 'Behave better than us! We were following the wrong flag, we were on the wrong side...', and he felt very guilty when everything that happened came to light, from the extermination of the Jews to the crazy acts of the Wehrmacht in the East, in Ukraine, in Russia, etc. And my brother told me, and I didn't know this, that my father together with our uncle Thun went to a pilgrimage site in Swabia, Bavaria, they went to a priest and discussed it with him. It was a religious attempt to face all these horrors - and not just let them pass..."

"All the weapons had to be handed in immediately, and my grandfather forgot about his hunting rifle. It was rather dangerous at that moment, because he could be suspected of supporting partisanship or something. And when Dr. Hoffmann arrived, my grandfather told him that he had found the rifle. The doctor put it under his long coat and left. As I said, he was very friendly and full of understanding, so my grandparents really didn't experience anything terrible from the Czech side. It's all written in the diaries. I can think of another moment where my grandfather described the very moment of the expropriation itself. He had to sign the expropriation papers himself - and he was terribly upset. He said it was a terrible moment, that after so many years in a country where they were also contributing to its development, a person could be expelled like that."