Ing. Jiří Haleš

“On the other hand, there were some hardened personalities that opened fire for no reason at all. For example, when Marie Charousková started to chase a tram in Klárov, one of the soldiers found it odd, pulled his machine gun, and shot her to pieces. She had a commemorative plaque at the place for a long time. Some people tried to remove it, others renewed it, but eventually, it disappeared.”

“Among the older generations, there was a pronounced tenderness towards Czechs. They would say: ‘unfortunate country, they are lacking the likes of a Masaryk or Beneš’. They simply understood that we were a sort of a colony incapable of doing anything. They haven’t seen anybody there for twenty years. Before the war, the Czechs were among the most highly esteemed guests there and where were they now?”

“In Yugoslavia people told me: ‘what kind of a nation are you that you didn’t defend yourselves? Here, in Yugoslavia, the moment a foreign soldier crosses the border, war is being declared automatically, and everybody is obliged to grab his gun and go to war. You sold out in the same way you did to the Germans in 1938’.”

“The people found out that in the back of the tanks there was a barrel with diesel and some tools. So, all you had to do was to take out that pick axe, slam it into the barrel and then light it up with a match. One tank was put on fire like this nearby the National Museum in the direction of the main train station. The tank crew got angry, and they opened fire at the façade of the National Museum. That’s how the Museum got those scars on its façade. They’re still there today.”