Božena Cohenová

“(Q.: Did you want to work at a field court from the very beginning?) No, there was no field court. I enlisted the army as a woman with number 4. To work at court was just my dream. I got a job in a social office. (Q.: Why?) A lot of people were arriving in horrible shape from the whole USSR, from Siberia. Before they could enlist the army they needed treatment. That was my job. I lead a kind of a social section. Later a judge from Prague appeared among us. His name was Dr. Winterstein, after the war he was promoted to general. He offered me a job immediately.”

“What should I say…? It is important to live honestly, to learn constantly. I still study. On Wednesday I take English lessons. We speak only English. I need to learn continually. You never know what it could be good for. Everybody in my family was or is a sort of artist. My mother had been drawing a little. I had been visiting lessons of painting during my studies in the evenings. I got even a certificate. In Russia I had been teaching painting too. I like it very much.”

“On 15th of March in 1939 Hitler set foot in Prague. I watched his arrival from a window of my office on Národní třída (a street in the center of Prague). Next day I found a letter on my desk that I was not allowed to work as a lawyer any more. Everything was prepared beforehand.”

“We dwelt in Lviv in those days. We ran away after news about the attack had been broadcasted. My colleague told me a train designated for wives of soviet officers will depart and there was a chance to leave the place. We drove to the railway station. A long train stood there, only women around. They taught we were wives of some officers and helped us to get in. I said: ‘This is my husband, my husband.’ They let him get in as well. So we departed. We left everything in Lviv. But others shared their food with us. They saw we had nothing at all. Our journey took eight days. Then we arrived to Chuvash Republic. We got off with empty hands, with no friends, like abandoned children. The only thing we saved was a document proving our profession of teachers.”