Helena Vovsová

“Had they not awaited Himmler, the gate would have been closed and the boys would have stayed at home. Allegedly, the soldier picked him up and when Ms. Heydrich – who was wearing something white that day – found out, she ran in there. Allegedly, she took Klaus into his arms and cried terribly that she would have both the driver and the soldier shot. Simply as a mom when something happens to her child. When I went there to see what was going one, a car arrived, stopped and I was asked about where is Ms. Heydrich’s chateau. That was the doctor.”

“We were planting something in there when suddenly a soldier arrived and remained standing there. I don’t know if he thought that Zdeněk (they were seventeen- or nineteen-year-old boys) was not working hard enough or if he told him something and he had replied – I don’t know. Long story short, I witnessed the soldier slapping him in the face. He had a blue cap which fell down. I stood up. The soldier had a small stick which he swatted against his rubber boots. I jumped in there, snatched his stick and broke it in half. And imagine, that soldier didn’t tell me anything, didn’t slap me, nothing. This is how I was back then.”

"The number of prisoners that were kept in the chateau was subsequently decreasing as they were taken away to Theresienstadt or to other places. Eventually, only about 60 inmates remained and these ones stayed for almost a year and a half. I supported four of them quite a bit. Once I brought a chunk of salami from Prague. But even before that, the SS-man Hans wanted me to do his laundry. I promised him to do it but my dad wouldn't let me. So I found a poorer family that was willing to do it. Just when I was taking that salami to Milan, I ran into Hans who told me he had some laundry to wash for me. I had to come with him and I hid that salami in my skirt. On the way there he complained to me that I was talking to the Jews too much. When we came into the room, I wanted to take the laundry but Hans would grab me and the salami came out. He said: 'Was ist das?' 'Hans, das ist meine Wurst (Hans, that's my salami)."

"We had no clue about what had happened. There was a lot of shouting, soldiers were everywhere. I was in the greenhouse when Hans came in with little Silke sitting on his arm. I asked him about what was going on. He said that there had been an assasination attempt on our boss. I wanted to know whether he was dead. Hans said: 'Noch nicht (not yet)'. We expected somebody to come and to interrogate us but no one came, nothing happened. We kept on going to work, the usual routine. At that time, the wine from Italy had arrived. It was in the storerrom. I snapped away a couple of balls. Well, you could say that I stole them."