Marie Vaňková

“My boy was two years old. I had started putting him in a creche from when he was around eighteen [months - trans.] - that was before nursery school. So I was getting dressed in the morning to take him there, and there was some kind of a commotion in the street. People kept shouting: ‘They’re here! They’ve taken us!’ And so on. So I switched on the radio, and then I heard that something was going on. So I reckoned: ‘Look here, girl, you’re not going to work.’ The first thing that occurs to you is Mum and Dad, right. So I reckoned I had to go back home. So I took the boy. We went by tram, which was really, that’s still an odd feeling, even today. The people were talking, right, swearing. Afraid of what will happen. So I got home, our mum hugged us all together and said: ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ So we lived there for two or three weeks. I didn’t go to work, I phoned my work. And at the time they excuse me. So then I only heard from those who did work, what the situation was like there. They were actually in Wenceslaus Square, as well, right, shooting up at the Museum and the Radio [House]. But they were also in the street where I was, Charvátová. That was the Škoda House, on National Avenue. They happened to have some scaffolding up at the time. So they said: ‘Man, really, we had them here as well. These types came here too.’ Back then they were really an odd assortment, I don’t know, either youngsters, or gaffers, like really old ones. They were shoddy, really, they were a sorry sight.”

“We lived in Suchdol from ’38 to ’42. I was four years old. All I can remember is one incident that happened when the Germans were already here. We didn’t have our own water, we had to get it from the school, where the pump was. And one time we were on our way there, and the Germans were already here. I don’t know if the schools were closed yet or if they had some kind of centre there, where they were quartered. That was my first meeting with a German. I thought he was such a nice gentleman. I guess he was. He started stroking me on the hair, asking what my name was and that he had a little girl like me as well. Well, so I thought, being the age I was back then, that they were all like that. Well, I guess I didn’t quite work out like that.”