“When it looked like it wouldn’t last, Jiří came to us and said: ‘Girls, we’re going to Bratislava.’ The trains weren’t working, so we went by foot and we hitch hiked. We hitched a lift with a truck full of German soldiers. We were sitting in the back on top of boxes of weapons and ammunition. We had a small cannon attached behind us. And suddenly some partisans started shooting at us. If they had hit the ammunition, we would’ve been dead. Luckily they only killed the poor soldiers, we were unscathed. I had my eyes glued to the cannon the whole time, it lurched back and forth as if it was also firing.”
“We went into the mountains by train, there was supposed to be some cottage in the forests there. My mother and sister arrived first, but they were caught by the police. Someone got the information through to Dad, so he could safely turn back. Dad just asked which direction the borders were, and then set off and crossed them. Jiří Wild and myself went last, it was late, and so we decided to hide somewhere and return to Prague in the morning. They caught us on the train station. But what did my mother do. She was incredible. She kicked my sister in the leg, (my sister) started snuffling and asked to go to the toilet. That was a wooden privy behind the house. So they went off round the back and then on through the forest and over the borders. So they all managed to escape except for me.”
Marta Kastnerová, née Procházková, was born in Prague on 1 October 1931, to Adolf Procházka and Helena Procházková (née Koželuhová, a niece of the Čapek brothers). Both her parents were lawyers and members of the (conservative) People’s Party. During the war her father fled from the Nazis to Great Britain, where he was elected chairman of the Legal Council of the Czechoslovak government in exile. Her mother stayed in the Protectorate and was arrested twice (1940, 1942) and imprisoned in Terezín for a short while. After her release she entered into a fake marriage with Jiří Wild, and the family lived in Slovakia until the end of the war. After the war the Procházkas reunited. Adolf Procházka became the minister of health. After the communist coup in February 1948 the family attempted to flee the country, but Marta was detained and spent several weeks in custody. After her release she succeeded in emigrating. She lived in the United States. Marie Kastnerová passed away on September, the 21st, 2023
