Ludmila Hájková

"Dad was a member of the resistance group Obrana národa [Defence of the Nation], in the group of major Sadilek. The groups were made of railway men and postmen and those who had the option. The postmen were inconspicuous, they walked all over the neighbourhood. They carried mail, right? The railway men rode between stations. They were in contact. Dad was a signaller and he used to go to the block post. I loved to visit him there. One day, I came there and didn't see dad anywhere. His colleagues told me: 'Girl, your dad is not here any more. The Gestapo came and took him away." „Tatínek byl v odbojové skupině Obrana národa, a sice ve skupině majora Sadílka. Skupiny tvořili železničáři a pošťáci a ti, kdo měli možnost. Tím, že pošťáci chodili po celé čtvrti, tak nebyli nápadní. Roznášeli poštu, že. Železničář zase samozřejmě popojížděl po stanicích. Ti železničáři byli domluveni. Tatínek pracoval jako výhybkář a chodil na hradlo. Já tam za ním strašně ráda chodila. Jednou jsem tam přišla, a tatínka jsem tam neviděla. Jeho kolegové, co tam byli, mi řekli: ‚Děvenko, tvůj tatínek už tady není. Přišlo si pro něho gestapo.‘“

"Out of sudden, the door burst open and they forced their way inside. Dad in the middle and the SS members at his sides. They stormed in and dad didn't know. He told us later that he thought they had a dog with them. Because little Ludmila didn't know any better than jump up and hug him as soon as she saw him. This way, I scared him, poor man. Mom brought him cake and pastries she baked. Dad was barely recognisable. He lost weight. He had such a sunken face. He never had much hair because as a railway worker, he had to wear a cap and his hair was receding even in his youth and he had a bald spot. We saw that he had wounds as they had beaten him in his head. There were dry scabs and fresh ones."

"There were plenty of young people allocated as forced labourers in Germany. I was not eighteen yet so I had to stay in Prague so that I'd be at home. I was allocated to the ČKD Kolben-Daněk and I would commute to Vysočany. I worked at the assembly line, as a cleaner and as a sandwich girl. I did everything. I cleaned in the workshops, I wiped the machines, I was bringing snacks to the workers. This was a tough job, they ordered beer and I had to carrry crates of bottles. There was not much food and t was rationed and there was less and less of it. I had to deal with the coupons, too, to cut them up and so on, when I went to the canteen to buy something for someone. So I was really working hard..." „Totálně nasazených byly spousty mladých lidí v Německu. Protože mi ale ještě nebylo osmnáct, tak jsem musela zůstat v Praze, abych byla doma. Totálně mě nasadili v ČKD Kolben-Daněk a jezdila jsem do Vysočan. Pracovala jsem jednak u strojů a také jako uklízečka a svačinářka. Všechno dohromady. Uklízela jsem dílny, musela jsem ometat stroje a nosit svačiny dělníkům. To byla hrozná dřina, protože si objednávali piva a já je musela nosit v basách. Jídla moc nebylo, to bylo jenom na lístky a bylo ho čím dál méně. Ale i o ty lístky jsem se musela starat, stříhat je a tak dále, když jsem to šla do kantýny pro někoho kupovat. Takže jsem opravdu makala...“

"After the war, one prisoner told us, he was detained for something else, though. They led him through the Petschke palace [the Prague HQ of Gestapo] to some other room for interrogation and maybe to scare him, they wanted him to see what they do to the others. Dad was an atheist and they knew it so they nailed him to the wall like Christ and so they interrogated him. So the other prisoner saw him like this through the open door when they led him and they stopped on purpose so that he’d see what they were capable of. Dad did not squeal, though. After the war, it was noted in the Gestapo protocols and the historians researched it as well, he did not reveal one single name. It was known, or so they said, that with Mráček, the mass arrests stopped.“

"In our school, some girls appeared on the very first day. They were wearing only their nightgowns because they expelled them during the night. The Henlein supporters cruelly drove them out, whole families. They did not have anything to wear but those night gowns before their dads got them something from the Czech Heart charity. The dad went to get something to wear so he sent them to school. What was he supposed to do with them... There were hundreds of thousands of people who needed to find shelter fast."