Ladislav Janouch

“We found ourselves amidst a running crowd, and then we could dodge through to the foot of the Hrdlořezy hill, which was scarred with trenches as protection for the surrounding factories. And the only thing we could do was to jump into the trenches, deep or not, and hope that if we stick our head as low down as possible, it might perhaps miss us. When we came running out into the main street, we heard the whirr, booming like; when a bomber group approaches, it gives out this dark, booming noise. It was almost a hundred bombers. We looked round and saw them coming, they were somewhere above the western part of Prague. And you could see the bombs dropping down like a curtain. So I reckoned they’d be upon us in a moment.”

“Heydrich went to Vienna, and they set up a stone that damaged the railroad switch. They did it in a way that not a single stone was in sight. When there’s a stone in the switch, it can’t be clenched. Anyway, so they damaged it somehow, and the train couldn’t go through. And so Heydrich sat there among the cliffs and waited in the train. There was a dreadful alarm, and it took about three hours before the train could carry on again. Unfortunately, it got through, nothing happened, but on the other hand I’m actually grateful for that – otherwise I wouldn’t be here telling you about it. Because if there had been even the slightest shade of suspicion that the thing was set up, and no one from our family nor from the signalman’s family would be here. If a switch is damaged like that, you can never exactly predict if the train will derail or not. And if it does, there’s a chance that it also flips over. And it was an express with free passage ensured along the whole track from Prague to Vienna. Nothing was allowed to impede it on the way, no trains, no crossings, everything stood stock still on the track. It had express, free passage from station to station. Dad was courageous, and Mr Ludvík Dluhoš, the signalman, was also courageous, but it stank of the grave.”

“When we neared our borders, my experience as a soldier told me something was up. I saw military campsites there, that they had full gear with them, that they were in full numbers. I gaped... I didn’t know what was going on... And when, after I returned, I asked our functionaries and our counter-intel if there was to be some exercises or what... no one had a clue, no one knew anything... it was really secret. At that instance I realised: ‘You smart aleck, you saw it there, you saw the forces gathering. In that narrow area.’ The history of it was that an emergency was declared, I don’t know if it was before or after midnight. Report to your sections. The army commander also knew only what they told him by phone. That allied forces had crossed the borders and that he had been ordered not to shoot. Because, just think of it, our humble army against those hundreds of thousands... it would be a bloodbath... no shooting...”