“We were originally supposed to go to Sweden, I think, but then it was called off. Then my uncle who was already at that time in London, working for the Czech exile authorities, sent us a Yugoslav visa via a Yugoslav employee. We travelled there in fear because we did not know whether this weren’t merely a trap of sorts. Naturally, we had to go to the Gestapo and turn in everything – all the money, the house, everything. We arrived to Vienna where friends of friends had us sleep over. It was very risky for them to have Jews stay overnight. We took the train to Belgrade along with an acquaintance from Pelhřimov who said: ‘They won’t let you through; Jews are no longer allowed to go.’ Luckily they let us in. Then we waited for three weeks for a British visa. Along with two other Czech families we boarded a ship which brought Polish soldiers to war and got to France. In Paris we experienced our first air raid. We could not go further because the Germans have occupied Calais, so we departed from Dieppe. We also could not go to Dover so instead we went to New Haven.”
“We were very happy about making it to London, fleeing home, although we had no idea that it would turn out to be so bad there. I have lived in London from 1940 to 1945. First I was employed as an assistant seamstress, later I attended a sewing and design school for two years. Then I worked in a bureau, in the Jewish department which was part of the Ministry of Interior. Then I returned and worked here for the Czech UNRRA, in the Office for Economic Aid and Restoration.”
“I did not receive specific information in England about what was happening back home, in Germany or in Poland. We only learned that one of my mom’s brothers had been executed. We did not know much. We also knew about Hitler’s atrocities, hearing it on the radio, his speeches from Germany… I remember our dad always having red ears and being angry when he listened to his speeches. But we did not know in specific what was going on.”
Jaroslava Hrudová, née Friedmannová, was born on 27 February 1923 in Pehlřimov into a Jewish family. Her father worked as a veterinarian, her mother was a housewife taking care of her two daughters. In 1937 the family moved to Litoměřice where Jaroslava’s father found a job. Following the occupation of the Sudetenland in the fall of 1938 the family left for Prague. Jaroslava Hrudová attended a grammar school in Litoměřice and later transferred to a women’s professions school in Prague. In 1940 the Friedmann family managed to leave the country. Thanks to an uncle who lived in England they obtained an entry visa to Yugoslavia from where they travelled to Marseille. From France they sailed to England and settled down in London where they had spent the whole war period. Jaroslava Hrudová studied there and later worked as a clerk. In the summer of 1945 the whole family returned to Prague. Many of their relatives had not survived the war, either dying in concentration camps or being executed. Before 1948 Jaroslava worked in Prague as a clerk for UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration). In 1948 she got married to a medical doctor and moved to Kladno. There she taught at an elementary school and lived there up until 2011 when she moved to an old people’s home in Hagibor, Prague.
