"I was crying there and the director said, you know, you'll try it next year. And then the janitor Král came in and said: "Girl, what are you doing here? And I said: I wasn't accepted to medical school, I've already applied three times and it didn't work out, it's probably because my parents aren't party members. That's what I said. And he said: I'd look into it. He hit the table and said: Director, call me the rector's office! So I was thinking, what’s going to happen now? But then the principal said, ‘The Rectorate? I’m telling you—the Rectorate! Get the personnel officer!’ So he called the personnel officer at the Rectorate, and I could hear a rather cold voice on the other end. And then he said, ‘Comrade, what kind of mess do you have over there? This is Král from the grammar school in Michle. When I recommend someone, I stand by it. And if you don’t fix this immediately, you’re not going to like what happens next. We’ll meet on a different level.’ And I was nearly crawling under the table, thinking, now they’re definitely going to arrest me. But then he slammed the phone down and said, ‘They’ll apologize to you! You’ll be accepted within three days!’ I couldn’t believe that was even possible—but sure enough, within three days I got a letter saying there had been a mistake, that I had been accepted. Though by then, it was already the beginning of November."
"We were not liberated by the Red Army. We were almost about to be liquidated, because the Germans, who were leaving the area where they were and wanted to go over to the American army, not the Russian army, drove women and children in front of them as human shields so that they would not be shot at, as hostages. Some of them they shot straight away, on Jezerka they shot the women and children straight away. This horror was taking place several houses away from our house, when I, the only girl who spoke German, was preparing this plea to the SS men: gentlemen, we are only mothers and children here, don't shoot us, we didn't do anything to anyone. Such a childish story. Fortunately, it didn't happen, because on the eighth there were huge bangs, because Vlasov's army was coming from Podolí, which was armed, and it stood up against the German army. So they withdrew and went westwards."
"Because there was a shortage of heating and it was really cold in winter, there were so-called coal holidays. Coal holidays meant that we didn't go to school for a week, maybe a fortnight. This also happened on February 14, 1945, when I spent the coal holidays with my relatives in Kladno, with Auntie Jarmila, a teacher who did my homework with me and took care of me. We went by train and here I would like to mention my experience with the so-called boilermakers. They were western airplanes who, when they saw the train coming, circled over the train to give the engineer time to stop, and he did stop, and the conductor gave the command: 'Into the fields! So the entire population fled to the fields where they lay down. There was shooting and the pilots flew onto the locomotives and practically wrecked them so that they could not be operational. That was one of my very unpleasant experiences. I know my father lay on top of me, trying to protect me. Then the pilots took off. I think it was just one plane."
Zdenka Kopecká was born on 22 February 1933 in Prague. In her childhood she used to visit her adopted grandfather Václav Kotyškov, the last editor-in-chief of Otto’s Encyclopedia. Her mother Anna Tošovská married Zdenek Varhaník and during the First Republic they opened a bookshop in Prague at 1020/63 Pankrác street, where they lived and where the 51st Police District was located. The policemen were former legionnaires. During the Heydrichiad, the legionnaires warned them in time that there would be searches. Zdenka Kopecká experienced first the raid of an Allied plane on a train from Kladno on February 14, 1945, then the aftermath of the raid on Prague. In 1953, she entered medical school, and got there thanks to the intercession of the schoolmaster, the chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. She studied under Professor Josef Švejcar. After graduating in 1958, she was placed in Kutná Hora, where she worked in paediatrics for five years. Then she returned to Prague and joined the Research Institute for the Organisation of Health and Social Medicine under the Ministry of Health, was a district paediatrician in Prague 5 and a medical statistician at the OÚNZ Prague 5. In 1968 she worked near Vinohradská Avenue, from where she observed tanks. A stray bullet at their home in Košíří almost killed her son. In the 1980s, her husband Karel Kopecký was awarded the Laureate of the State Prize for Geobotanical Work. She had the opportunity to travel with her husband to Austria, but she was insulted at the interrogation in Bartolomějská street, so she refused to go. In the 1990s, the Ministry of Health sent her a consultant who did not believe that the Unfiied Child Care system worked. By 2006 she was serving extra years, working as a paediatrician and caring for deaf and mute children. In 2024, she was living in Prague Košíří.
The Varhanik family, Zdenka Kopecká, top centre, 11 years old. On the photo is father Zdenek Varhaník, mother Anna Varhaník and paternal grandfather Bohuslav Varhaník, 1944
The Varhanik family, Zdenka Kopecká, top centre, 11 years old. On the photo is father Zdenek Varhaník, mother Anna Varhaník and paternal grandfather Bohuslav Varhaník, 1944
The house of Václav Kotýška's grandfather in Dobruška. The house was the subject of a programme called "Osuduplné č.p. 100" (Fateful No. 100) in the series Stories of Houses, 15 August 2008.
The house of Václav Kotýška's grandfather in Dobruška. The house was the subject of a programme called "Osuduplné č.p. 100" (Fateful No. 100) in the series Stories of Houses, 15 August 2008.
A group of barricaders from the house at 1020/63 Pankrác, where the witness lived. The man in the hat is Dr. Reimann, on the far right the Austrian anti-fascist fighter Hugo Netter, 1945
A group of barricaders from the house at 1020/63 Pankrác, where the witness lived. The man in the hat is Dr. Reimann, on the far right the Austrian anti-fascist fighter Hugo Netter, 1945
