Eva Tůmová

"My mother returned ... At first we thought she was just extremely tired and that good food and care would make up for it all. But she had multiple sclerosis and since about 1947 she has been more in hospitals than anywhere else. Within five years she passed. Dad returned seemingly in excellent condition, but of course the hardships of the First and Second Wars were thoroughly signed on him. He died at the age of 64."

"When my father passed through the Loreta house and was in Pankrác, at that time I, as a thirteen or fourteen-year-old, used to bring my father a package of clean linen once a month. Prisoners could not wash clothes, the family had to supply. I have a vivid memory of Dr. Horáková, who was in the group of women prisoners taking over the packages at the time, there was a reception desk, and five wardens rummaged through what we had brought, if there was something wrong, and they casually re-bound it and handed it back. And a young woman was standing behind me, holding a little girl, I didn't know who she was, if she was a sister, a cousin, daughter, but she saw a familiar face and began to reach out to her. Then the warden slapped her hands and immediately led Dr. Horáková back and didn't let her into the hall anymore. "

"None of them were guilty of anything. Just of fighting for this country on all possible fronts. And they were all locked up until 1953, because at the end of 1952, Bedřich Reicin was hanged together with Slánský as a traitor for high treason, and I don't know what the condemnation was, and today there are people who would like to make him a hero. Someone who committed so many atrocities it’s impossible to explain. When he came to us, dad was already locked up, and my mother and I were at home, he brought in four soldiers, he stood in the door ... I see him to this day. And he just said to them, 'There's that picture, there's that picture, there's that silver cutlery, there's that porcelain there so it doesn't break ...' Even the embroidered duvets with the monogram that my mother embroidered into the marriage. They just took everything that fit into those four bales and we stood there with my mother, scared, and there was nothing we could do. Within a week, my mother was notified that due to her husband's betrayal, her pension was immediately withdrawn. She didn't even get a penny. "

"None of the prisoners they took there were tried. They were labeled hostages. They were told from the beginning that they were expected to get home very soon because they would exchange them for a German officer." - "Why did your mother become a hostage?" - "Because my father demonstrably disappeared from the republic and was nowhere. He was a military official in a rather high position. If they already knew exactly that he was already a colonel or a lieutenant colonel at that time, leading our army in Tobruk or that he would later oust Rommel from Africa, that was in 1943, so they were to either return to England or go to Russia - Svoboda set up an eastern army near Buzuluk. Svoboda asked president Beneš to assign experienced officers. My father and Klepalek were tossing a coin who would go to Russia and who to England. Dad won Russia and he was happy. "

“The life in Kampa was naturally so interesting for me. Because there was nobody from the cultural milieu who would not visit there, if he was a really an honest and smart person. But for me, what was amazing, for example, was that at that time it was unthinkable to get hold of some foreign literature here, and especially literature written by Czech authors whose works I like to read. But people who had somehow secretly managed to smuggle those books during their vacation or business trips were anonymously bringing these books in there and placing them on the stairs of the Werich family villa and leaving them there. And in the mornings, when I went to open such a black grate gate which separated the lower apartment from the upper floor apartment, one or two books would be lying there.”

“I will remember him (Bedřich Reicin) for as long as I am alive: he was standing in our door, leaning against the door frame like this, and with him there were two soldiers who carried two large bags and he was only pointing at things: ‘Pack this. Pack this. Pack that.’ To put it simply, whatever he liked, a painting, a fur coat, a china tableware, silver utensils. They even took mom’s bed clothes which she had embroidered with her initials for her dowry. Whatever they could, they stuffed it into those bags and they led my dad away, pointing at him with guns or kalashnikovs. And I, a ten-year-old, remained standing there, and my mom was lying there, as a bedridden patient.”

“On April 19th somebody knocked on the door in the school and the teacher went out to see, and then she looked into the classroom and said: ‘Evička, come out, somebody is waiting for you.’ And I stepped out and I saw my mom after five years. But Germans were still everywhere around, Prague was still being heavily occupied by a German garrison. We thus led mom home and the men from the house prepared a small chamber for her behind the coal pile in the basement. I would say it looked like a rabbit house, they simply used a few planks and they nailed old bags over them so that nobody would see a light from the outside if she used an electric torch or a candle there, and they made a makeshift door and a bunk for her there so that she could lie down in the evenings. And we gave her electric torches and candles there. And the neighbours were taking turns and each morning, one of them, the one who was on duty, removed the coal for us in the evening and in the morning so that we would be able to get to this door.”

“I was six, seven, eight, nine. And my brother was five years older, so he was ten, eleven, twelve. And we had to do everything by ourselves. Since our mom was wealthy, she had received a large dowry and it was deposited in the bank. And in the rental apartment houses like the one in which we lived at that time, there was always a caretaker. Perhaps you don’t even know anymore who a caretaker was. The caretaker was simply a woman who was responsible for cleaning the house, receiving mail and watching so that no strangers would get into the house, and so on. Our caretaker was paid by our relatives who had arranged that she would wake us up in the mornings and tell us: ‘Children, it’s time to get up!’, prepare breakfast for us and send us to school. To the first grade, second grade and third grade. At that time, lunches were already provided in schools at noon. At noon we would thus go to the school cafeteria to eat lunch. And as for suppers, I had to learn to cook them. When I was six, I was thus already able to prepare oats porridge, to heat sausages, to make scrambled eggs, and simple tasks like that. And our kind neighbours taught me all this. When I didn’t know how to do something, I knew that I could ring the door bell from any neighbour in the house and say: ‘Auntie, a button came off from my shirt, and I don’t know how to attach it yet.’”

“As soon as the two-member Gestapo guards marched out on the morning of the 16th, it was the German military police, they came for my dad as well. He met them on the stairs. Fortunately, our army no longer existed anymore at that time, and so he wore his civilian clothing. And when they asked him where he lived - he held a major’s rank at that time - and they asked him where major Střelka lived. And he said: ‘On the fourth floor.’ They thanked him and they went on to the fourth floor. And dad only ran from the first floor where he met them to the house on the opposite side of the street. And he was standing behind a door with glass window panes there. The door had small glass windows. And he was watching whether they were taking mom and the children. And when they were not, he waited for the Gestapo to go away and then he calmly went to the tram stop. That was because already a long time before he had made arrangements where he would go to hide should they come to arrest him.”