Marie Dubská

"And there was one, not this one, but one of my classmates from the English Institute as a partisan. I got a new liaison, Jiří Polidar. First I knew only his first name Jiří, only later I learnt his surname was Polidar. I didn't know this resistance group was communist. I didn't care. To this day, I don't care about political parties. Everybody has some idea of how they want their life to be. I respect them as long as they don't hurt anyone. So I worked with Polidar. That was in the resistance. I used to get jobs, once I wrote flyers at a friend's work... I didn't have a typing machine, she was employed in an office. I'd always write it in there after working hours. And then it was distributed around Prague." - "Can you think of any of the text on the leaflets?" - "It said that we had to fight and what to do. When they went to blow up the tracks, they didn't take me with them. I was unhappy, it was just the guys that went."

"When they occupied the borderlands, I was in Prague, we were demonstrating. One young man walked with a banner, followed by the two of us, me and my roommate behind him. By the time we reached the castle, we were a big crowd of people. So we got to the castle and there was tear gas, mounted police. President Beneš didn't come out, he didn't speak to the nation. People were making all kinds of speeches. Like a kind of rebellion. We didn't want to give up the borderlands, of course."

“After they had bombed us – and the floor we were on was in flames – one of the walls began to crumble in the room where I was on duty by the telephone. And the commander yelled at me: 'Move aside, girl,' so I jumped aside and it all fell down. And as I was on duty... clothing was scarce back then, girls wouldn´t even wear knickers. All I had was a skirt and a jacket. Then the boys found out that there were those black uniforms in the basement. So they wanted me to wear it, as I was among the boys day and night, they wanted me to wear trousers. So I changed my clothes. And my old clothes were just hanging there and of course it all burned. My backpack with my ID in it, it was all gone. And we had to move down.” - “To the Town Hall cellars?” - “Yes. But not where mothers with children were. And after that, I... as our phone broke down... As I had been running to get some food for the boys and bringing the wounded downstairs, I found out there was this other phone. So we had some connection after all, right? But downstairs, as we got there, we had been already saying our goodbyes, given that we had been expecting them to storm in and shoot us all. But the Germans, the Gestapo-men, they were so afraid of the Soviet Army that they just tried to run away in time to get to the Americans.”

“One of the German girls who were with me at the convent school was visited by her sister who brought something with her. And all the German girls gathered, talking and laughing. And I saw they had this leaflet. And after the sister left, the girl had been ordering her stuff in a drawer. And she would leave the leaflet on the table so I would just grab it and read it. And there was stated that Masaryk was a liar, despite having 'Truth prevails' as his slogan. And Czechs – they would all go to hell! And after that, we would have our land, our nation and our leader. So without hesitating I decided that as I would go to class I would report it to the police. But sister educator took that leaflet from me. But there was this girl in our class who didn´t live at the convent. And she helped me find out where the police station was. And I went to class I would go there and report it. And after that, it was already May.”