"And he decided to go to that family of ours. I don't know, what my mom always said a little bit, she felt that we accepted him. I guess it wasn't easy at the time, political prisoner and I don't know what all. And my grandmother accepted him, and his family in that Moravia, I don't know, not that they didn't accept him, but it was probably really terrible, because a lot of his siblings died there because of him going to England, from the Nazis. So the family was probably cautious in that communist era. I don't know, I don't want to comment exactly. He just decided to go to his wife's family, who was also killed by the Nazis in a concentration camp, my grandmother's sister. My grandmother bore it terribly, it was terrible for her. And my grandmother took him in, because he had nowhere to go in that Prague, to this small apartment in Mala Stepanska 5. It was a 1+1 without a bathroom, without everything, but she took him in. I remember that exactly, he could have lived there for three or four years, and my mother and I used to go there all the time to see them, and I guess unbelievable things happened there, because that's where the generals met. I mean, I remember as a kid, so all these older generals...General Fajfr, I just kind of remember that. And they were playing tarot, I remember that too, and they were always talking about stuff. But the only thing I remember them saying...and I'm a good, as I was that young...that the biggest danger in the future was going to be from China."
"I still remember, I perceived it as such, but I didn't realize it so far yet, when it was the year sixty-eighth, and suddenly people started coming to this Klárov, to this apartment, some television, something was being filmed there. And they came from England. Because as soon as it was freed up and he was partially rehabilitated, suddenly some things started happening at Klárov, and I thought, 'Well, that's it, that uncle is famous, I guess!' But I still...I have to say that they didn't bother me at all, my uncle and my mother, with any of this terrible history of his life. So I lived quite happily. I was aware of that. And then the funeral, that stuck in my mind too, I was thirteen. That there were so many people there and that my grandmother was there and she was crying so much. And then she lost her memory for six months. She had a shock that he died and she lost her memory, but then it came back. She lived a long time after that. The funeral was very powerful, all the soldiers were there, the army, so I saw them and they were playing the national anthem. Which I was intrigued too, and then I read what I didn't know at the time, that it was forbidden to play that hymn, but the organist, at his peril, played the hymn despite the ban."
"He was mainly a soldier, and for me, what I learned most was that he was also in the First World War, but of course I didn't know that or didn't perceive it at all. I know that after that he also studied meteorology in college because he was interested in aviation and in the Second World War he became interested or wanted to build squadrons in England and they went to England to start fighting the Nazis and he was instrumental in building squadrons, 310, 311, 312, 314. The 311 was the very famous bomber squadron and what makes it significant is that he was appointed Air Marshal by the King of England, I think in 1945. Which is actually, I think, the only English air marshal to receive that distinguished post. And then also the King George's Spa Order, which I perceived as a child, because I think it was a big deal to my mother because she said she had that Spa Order. And we always used to look at it at home because we had all these decorations at home, there were a lot of them. And the Spa Order was in this little blue box and my mum would always show it. And we kept it at home, first my grandmother had it in Malá Štěpánská, and then we had it in Klárov, including all the photographs and albums, clippings, because it was not allowed to fall into the hands of the communists."
Mahulena Křenková was born on 19 April 1958 in Prague. Her parents divorced when she was three years old and she grew up with her mother Helena Fenzlová, a soloist of the National Theatre Ballet. Helena Fenzlová was the great-niece of RAF Air Marshal and Divisional General of the Czechoslovak Army Karel Janoušek, the Supreme Commander of the Czechoslovak Air Force in Great Britain during World War II. Shortly after the Communist takeover, Karel Janoušek was arrested while attempting to flee abroad following provocation by State Security Service and subsequently sentenced to 19 years in prison in a mock trial. He was released after the great amnesty for political prisoners in 1960, after twelve years spent in the worst communist prisons. Until his death (in 1971) he lived in the same household with Mahulena and her mother and also with Maria Fenzl, Mahulena’s grandmother, sister of Karel Janoušek’s wife. His wife Anna Janoušková, as well as his brother-in-law Otakar Fenzl and four other relatives perished in the Nazi concentration camps. Mahulena Křenková studied at the Dance Conservatory, then at the Academy of Performing Arts and, like her mother, became a soloist with the National Theatre Ballet. After an accident in 1994, she ended her dance career and began teaching dance. She still teaches dance at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Her lifelong partner was Zdeněk Křenek, the son of RAF pilot Karel Křenek, who, like Karel Janoušek, was convicted in one of the many politically motivated trials against former RAF pilots.
