Jan Chaloupka

“I believe it was August 15, 1944, there was an air-raid which was particularly damaging for the Hermann Göring Werke factory, the Stránská Rock, and part of the airport. It caught the old Černovice, too, mainly the church. And a small house right across the street from us was also hit. It was ten thirty at night, my father had just come back from the night shift, and suddenly people started screaming: ,Here they come! Here they come! The shelter, quick!’ So we ran into the hall, I don’t know why I started running up the stairs, so Dad, who wearing only his pants, grabbed me, hurried me into the cellar, and that’s when it went bang!”

"When he returned from the war, he had quite severe injuries. You couldn’t tell, but somewhere on the front he had been hit by four bullets and about forty grenade splinters. They dragged him to the aid station and apparently the doctor said: ,This can’t be helped, either he’ll live, or he won’t. Either his injuries become encased, and he’ll live normally, or they won’t.’ And they all became encapsulated. Once a year, he would go to the Military Hospital and they would organise a whole afternoon around him with a lecture, doctors and medics in attendance, an Xray… They would examine him and demonstrate to the medical students how with correct analysis and without actually doing anything, even severe injuries can be survived. You don’t have to do anything about it, it becomes, as he said, encapsulated.”