Miloš Fric

* 1937

  • "At the time of the German occupation, after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Reich Protector, the uncle of Mrs. Hejplikova was hiding by the Hejpliks, who had a civic ID card issued illegally by Mr. Hrdlicka, the secretary of state. Mr. Hrdlicka was arrested by the German state police, the gestapo, he told them what he knew during interrogation, and among all those people was also Mrs. Hejplik's cousin. Perhaps his uncle had a son. So the Gestapo came to Hejpliks. An order for their arrest was issued, sent to the Chodov police station and the head police at the police station, I found out that he was called Jan Jeřábek (it says there, but I did not know his name), came to the house where the family lived. It was a house in Opatov, today's street number 11. Hhere I have a photo in front of the house. [bell] The Hejpliks were not at home, drying hay near the swimming pool in Milíčov. Mrs. Hanuš had to go with the policeman to show him where they were. She walked, actually almost running so far away from the police officer who had let her run. She rushed to them to tell them what was going on, but they just waited for the officer to come and arrested them. Well, they could not run anywhere, where would they run, when an arrest warrant was issued... He led them to the municipal office, locked them in a small locked chamber called a dressing room in the cellar. In the morning the police picked them up and brought them to Pečkárna, today in Opletalova Street. At that time the so-called martial courts were in operation, where they were immediately sentenced to death. A day later there was a long list in the newspaper with the names of those, who were sentenced to help the enemy of the Greater German Empire. Among them were also the husbands Hejpliks."

  • "He went down quickly, landed on the bottom side. He came out of the plane, stepped out, somewhere it was noted or somebody said they helped him. But I think he got out. And of course we as boys rushed there - we guessed landing place and ran there. Here under the gardeners´ it was, right down from the school. (radio) We ran there and he was already out of the plane. I had the impression that he had a broken arm, spitting his teeth out, and here in the book it says that he had only light, some minor injury. So he did not have a broken arm, probably beaten up and bruised hand, but he was careful about it. Well, he gave us his chewing gums and chocolates that he carried with him just in case... He gave it to us because German soldiers were staying at that school and they came too. The patrol immediately came. They were just marching with military steps. Well, as were only boys, we ran, yeah, and soon as we saw that the plane was going down. They only arrived when they got a message and a command. So they were a little late. Meanwhile, we already had the chocolates and ate those. Well, of course, the old witches came rushing too, pardon my language, sorry for putting it like that. They also saw that we were getting something, so they did not want to come in short."

  • "But on May 7 I remember I was in the street at about four in the afternoon. My mother talked to the other neighbour and we waited for my grandmother to come out of the church. There were May devotions, and my grandmother was terribly godly, so she went to the church. She was there almost all the time. As there was something happening, it was rushing in there. So we were waiting for her. We kept waiting. And grandma was not coming. And just a bit down the street, two houses from us, the corner of the house under the owl was shot off. The bullets whirled around us, we could hear them in the air. Grandma was nowhere. And suddenly she appeared, walking very slowly, almost crawling."

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    ve škole (ZŠ K Milíčovu), 09.11.2017

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    duration: 55:01
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I got a chewing gum, but did not know what to do with it.

Miloš  Fric
Miloš Fric
photo: Pamět národa - Archiv

Miloš Fric was born on 11. December, 1937 in Prague. At the end of 1930s his parents built a house and the family moved to today’s Prague quarter called Chodov. He does not remember that WW2 influenced them much apart from lack of food and ratio system, but he does remember that in June 1942 their neighbours Hejplíks were arrested and shot for helping the “enemies of Germany”. In April 1945 he observed an emergency landing of Allies airplane. He experienced the Prague Uprising partly hiding in the cellar. Following the war he studied and started working in 1956.