Hana Ženíšková

"I always said, 'Look, Mom, I guess I was an unwanted child, wasn't I?' And my mother said, 'Well, you can't say it like that. But we just didn't count on it anymore.' So when my mom found out from the doctor that she was expecting, the first thing [she thought] was that it was a shame to have a baby at forty. Whereas dad was enthusiastic about it. He was happy that he could still have a child because my brother was grown up, he wasn't so involved in his life. I went to all the cinemas that were open to children with my father. And dad went with me to all the circuses that were there. He completely fulfilled his role of father, even though he was an old father. When we went together, people used to say, 'Little girl, you have a good grandfather!' And I said, 'That's not [Grandpa], that's my dad!' And they'd say, 'Oh, come on, that's your grandfather.' And dad would say, 'Oh no, she's right, I'm [really] dad.' And then I actually had four parents, two old and two young. My brother actually got married when I was seven years old. And so if my parents didn't buy me something, I'd go to my brother and I'd say, ‘Look, dad won't buy me this...' And he'd say, 'We'll buy you this, you know we will.' They didn't have kids until about five years after they got married and [by then] they had me as their child. And when we were [out] hanging out with my brother, they considered him a young dad. That in turn made them say, 'Well you were in a hurry!' And he said, 'Oh no, that's my sister!' And they said, 'Excuse me, you have a sister like that?' And he said, 'Yes, that's my sister.' And then when I was eighteen and we went to a social [event] together and he asked me to dance, they said, 'Well, you were in a hurry...' And then when we were getting on in years - I was thirty-five and he was eighteen years older - they'd say, 'Well, don’t you feel too old to date such a young lady!' And he said, 'Please, she's my sister!' And they said, 'Hey, tell that to somebody else.' And nobody ever believed him, no matter how young or old I was, that he was my brother and he had a sister that young."

"Until then [before father was removed as headmaster], we didn't know that the Germans would interfere so terribly in people's lives. And dad at that time, when he was unseated, was thinking about it very much and waiting to see what would happen next. Two days after he left school within the hour, he received a summons in the mail to report to the Gestapo commandant's office. We didn't even know what that meant until then. It was on the avenue of the present Klatovská [street], now there is a transport company there. That's where the Gestapo headquarters was. They interrogated dad all day long, and from the morning when dad went to the summons, my mother and I walked around Klatovská. I didn't go to school at all that day. Mom and I waited for him to come out. If he would come out at all... It wasn't until nine o'clock in the evening - he was supposed to be there at nine o'clock in the morning - that the door opened and dad came out, to our great joy, because he was well and nothing happened to him. He was informed that he must not leave the residence and must wait for further [news], that someone might come and get him and that he might somehow be called back. But that didn't happen. However, all the time that the war was on, dad was expecting for something to happen that would affect his life and ours unpleasantly. But nothing happened, so it was all good. Dad was at home for the entire Protectorate. He had a plenty of time, he was always in anticipation of what might happen. He was an avid musician, played the violin. So, he bought piano as well and played the violin or the piano all day long, so that he would lose that feeling that he might be called away and that something might happen that would affect our family a lot."

"It was already 1939 and the World War II was beginning. On the very first day the Germans crossed the border of the republic, my father was visited by two gentlemen. They were Germans. They told him that he was suspended the day they crossed the border. As a [former] legionnaire in Russia, he had to leave school immediately and was not allowed to return. And he was to expect other things to come that would relate to his being a legionnaire. Dad was very bitter about this, he was consternated... He was retired for six years for being the chairman [of the Unity of the Association of Czechoslovak Legionnaires in Pilsen]. Mentally, he took it very badly. Just before the Germans came here, he was chairman of the Russian legionnaires. And on 31 December 1938 he resigned from that position. The gentlemen who visited him at the school in Chodské náměstí and told him that he was immediately suspended or dismissed from the post of headmaster also told him to leave the school within the hour and to stay at the address where he lived."