I lived through the invasion in Russia
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Anna Kofferova, née Gutmann, was born on 24 November 1945 in London. Her parents, Amalie and Arnošt Gutmann, left for Great Britain in March 1939, and as Jews they avoided the tragic fate that would probably have awaited them in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. A large part of their families did not survive the Second World War. After graduating from twelve years of school in 1963, the witness applied to the Faculty of Science at Charles University. In 1964 she married Peter Koffer. Together, during the Prague Spring, they joined the Club of Committed Non-Partisans (KAN). In 1968, she successfully completed her studies in biochemistry. After a chance invitation from a Russian colleague, she and her husband lived through the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops in the Soviet Union. After returning to Czechoslovakia, they decided to emigrate. They left for West Germany on 31 August 1968 and after a fortnight travelled to the UK. They settled in London. They were convicted in absentia in Czechoslovakia in 1972 for the crime of leaving the republic and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment. In 1981 they renounced their Czechoslovak citizenship, which enabled them to visit Czechoslovakia regularly. In 1987, the witness divorced Petr Koffer. In 1990 she regained her Czechoslovak citizenship. Since 2021 she has lived in Wales, where her two sons also live.
