Marie Königová

“It was on 8 May 1945. [Old Town Square] was full of crowds of people, girls in national dress, radiantly joyful that the war was over. The war was supposed to be over, all the papers had been signed. But they still went on killing and killing, the Germans did, the SS mainly. My brother was there with a friends, in the square, looking for Dad. Suddenly there was a rapid barking of gunfire, I don’t know what weapon it was that the SS man used from up in Týn Tower. The sniper who raked [the square] with shots, the people down there. Everyone fell to the ground, we too, of course. Nothing happened to us, but a few people died or were wounded. And the Ruskies arrived at that very moment, it was like in a theatre play. All grimy, like in the dances. They drove up and turned their cannon to where the shooting had come from, and they shot off the spire of Týn Church, which went unrepaired for a long time after.”

“It was awful. Dad wasn’t in prison, but he was in custody because of those motorbikes he had. He didn’t have cars, just the one. And both brothers, Karel Šulc and Augustin Šulc, they investigated them both and they spent several months there, in Pankrác. My brother served with the ‘acers’ [members of the AEC, the forced-labour Auxiliary Engineering Corps - trans.]. So that was another problem. And my Průhonice granddad, my mum’s dad, died around that time too, in 1950. So Dad couldn’t even attend his funeral because he was locked up. He spent eight months in custody. But he had a lawyer, and the lawyer found out that they were expecting to find millions in the company. And Dad always said they asked: ‘Where are those millions?’ He said they were in his company. And they asked: ‘Where?’ The cops rummaged around in drawers and places. But he said: ‘Well, they’re in the shop!’ Because that’s where the motorcycles were, the wheels and machines he had bought, etc.”