František Brouk

"They had problems when the revolution was in Prague in 1945. In the theatre, there was the Sokol sign on the front, which is still there today, and it had been boarded up, covered up, and it said Kino Viktoria. When the Germans lost and were running away, the technicians from the theater wanted to take it down. They took ladders and took down the boarding that covered the Sokol sign. But, as you saw in the photos, there was a barracks across the street, and they could be seen easily. So the Germans raided them. Grandmother [my mum] shouted that the Germans were coming, so the men fled. My dad ran downstairs, took the films, the film boxes, because he was a projectionist. The German was pointing the gun to the window at Mum, we lived on the ground floor, that Grandpa [Dad] had to go with them. She knew German well and told them that dad was making films, that he hadn't done anything. It all turned out well. They said I was running shouting that they were going to kill my mum."

"He took part in the mobilisation as a border guard, they occupied the bunkers above Vrchlabí. We went there when I was six months old. I know it from the stories, because I was too young to know. My mother went there with me and my sister, in September the war was threatening, so that grandfather [my dad] would have some memory of us, if by chance... By chance it turned out well, he came back and worked as a janitor."