„Even when the Bradáč and Dub families came for a visit, they sent me outside so that I wouldn’t know anything. But even though they sent me outside, I was aware of everything, I knew it all, but nobody knew that I knew, not even my parents. And I saw how mom was down, how she was worried about the aunt, that she was anxious about it.”
„The health checks were everywhere, there was psychological testing and it was very strict, stricter than the boys, the men, and we went through the same training as men. It had never occurred to me that I could get to the airforce, I always adored airplanes, how they float up in the air, I did not know how it was possible. Then I obviously learned all the things, we studied aerodynamics, airframes, motors. Lots of studying, there were many subjects we had to master and then, there was flying. The first time, it was on a C-106, I sat next to Hana Vávrová. She was a flight instsructor, a tiny slender lady, nobody would ever guess that she could have such a job. I sat next to her, with safety belts on, a parachute underneath and now, that floating, that airplane, when it took off, it was so strange, something entirely new and surprising.”
„At first, they took my aunt to Petschke’s palace [which served as the Gestapo headquarters in Prague], as well as my uncle, they were investigated there, and then they were taken to Mauthausen. They executed her in Mauthausen. For what I know, back then, they said that she perished in a gas chamber but now I don’t know, the writer who writes about all this, about the Heydrichiad [Mr. Čvančara? - editor’s note], he visited us and something, and he learned about some things. He said that she was not executed in a gas chamber but that she was shot as was my uncle. But I don’t know what’s true and what is not. We lived with the notion that aunt was gassed and uncle was shot.”
She was born on the 23rd of November in 1931 in Prague to Jarmila and Josef Kýr. She grew up in the Pankrác neighbourhood. Her aunt and uncle, Josefa and Jindřhc Bautz, lived nearby; they were arrested by the Gestapo on the 21st of June in 1942 because they provided hiding place to the paratrooper Karel Čurda. She was eleven at that time and she was aware that her aunt and uncle were imprisoned and executed in Mauthausen concentration camp on the 24th of October in 1942. After the war, she studied at the private Hlaváč Business Academy and got a job at the Dutch cocoa company, Van Houten. After it was closed down in 1948, she found employment in the accounting department in Rudé právo [Red Law], the Communist Party daily. She was in charge of a recuriting campign for the army and at the end, she joined the army herself. After she went through the basic training in Žamberk, she managed to get into aviation school which she finished in July of 1953. She got the rank of lieutenant and she worked as a courier pilot of the 3rd class until March of 1954 when she had to quit the active army service due to her pregnancy. In 1954, she married another pilot, Pavol Hurajt, and they had two daughters. In March 1958, she left the army entirely due to family and health reasons. In total, she logged 110 flight hours during 417 flights. After leaving the army, she accompanied her husband who served as a fighter pilot with air force units in Košice, Piešťany and Ostrava-Mošnov and in Brno where he served as a deputy to the batallion commander for flight training. Before retiring in 1986, he trained Libyan pilots for five years. Then they settled in Jablonec nad Nisou where they bought a house. In 2022, Božena lived there with one of her daughters.
At a wiev point at Vyšehrad, from where the witness is looking at the house of Josefa and Jindřich Bautz, her aunt and uncle, in Lumírova Street. June 2022
At a wiev point at Vyšehrad, from where the witness is looking at the house of Josefa and Jindřich Bautz, her aunt and uncle, in Lumírova Street. June 2022
List of participants of the first and second run of the aviation school, from the book Ladies in Blue, about female pilots in the Czechoslovak air force, by Miroslav Moráček, 1953
List of participants of the first and second run of the aviation school, from the book Ladies in Blue, about female pilots in the Czechoslovak air force, by Miroslav Moráček, 1953
The wedding of the stepson of Aunt Hrabětová (top row, centre, sister of the deceased mum of the witness), far left, top row: Blažena Huláková (witness' mum's sister from the first marriage of her father, Jaroslav Valášek), far left, bottom row, Josefa Bautzová (witness' mum's other sister from the first marriage of her father, Jaroslav Valášek), above her, witness' mum, Jaroslava Kýrová, née Valášková
The wedding of the stepson of Aunt Hrabětová (top row, centre, sister of the deceased mum of the witness), far left, top row: Blažena Huláková (witness' mum's sister from the first marriage of her father, Jaroslav Valášek), far left, bottom row, Josefa Bautzová (witness' mum's other sister from the first marriage of her father, Jaroslav Valášek), above her, witness' mum, Jaroslava Kýrová, née Valášková
Apprenticeship certificate of witness' father, Josef Kýr, which attests that he apprenticed as a sausage maker at Emanuel Maceška, a well-known sausage maker in Prague and the owner of Maceška Palace in the Vinohrady neighbourhood
Apprenticeship certificate of witness' father, Josef Kýr, which attests that he apprenticed as a sausage maker at Emanuel Maceška, a well-known sausage maker in Prague and the owner of Maceška Palace in the Vinohrady neighbourhood
Proof of posting of a package of Josefa Bautzová from the Gestapo Prison in the Small Fortress in Terezín, dated 29th October 1942, when she was already dead but Božena's mom did not know it yet.
Proof of posting of a package of Josefa Bautzová from the Gestapo Prison in the Small Fortress in Terezín, dated 29th October 1942, when she was already dead but Božena's mom did not know it yet.
Proof of posting of a letter of Josefa Bautzová from the Gestapo Prison in the Small Fortress in Terezín, dated 4th November 1942, when she was already dead but Božena's mom did not know it yet.
Proof of posting of a letter of Josefa Bautzová from the Gestapo Prison in the Small Fortress in Terezín, dated 4th November 1942, when she was already dead but Božena's mom did not know it yet.
The Czechoslovak War Cross 1939, an army decoration awarded to Josefa Bautzová by President Edvard Beneš in recognition of her activity in fight for liberating the Czechoslovak Republic from the occupation by the enemy
The Czechoslovak War Cross 1939, an army decoration awarded to Josefa Bautzová by President Edvard Beneš in recognition of her activity in fight for liberating the Czechoslovak Republic from the occupation by the enemy
