It is always good to know one’s enemy

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Zdena Ehrmannová was born in 1927 in Prague and her childhood was carefree until the outbreak of WWII. She first became aware of the current political situation when transports carrying Jews to concentration camps began passing behind their house and she felt the omnipresent fear from the Gestapo. The father of one of her friends was executed for his involvement in the resistance movement. Zdena participated in compulsory short-term work in the border region (hops picking) before the end of the war. In the final days of the war she witnessed the flight of German soldiers who attempted to break through the barricade in Malešice and also the arrival of the Red Army, where, probably only by coincidence, she was saved from rape. After the war she had to go for another three-month work to the border regions when workers were needed to replace the Germans who had been forcibly deported. She joined the Union of National Socialist Youth. In 1947, during a trip to the mountains, she met her husband-to-be Petr Hermann, former soldier on the western front. They married and had one daughter. In the 1950s her husband was threatened with arrest for his Jewish origin and his having fought in the western army and he therefore volunteered to work in the Jáchymov mines. After two years of separation he returned home and he learnt the locksmith’s trade. The Ehrmann family was living under the state surveillance until 1989.