Vlasta Palisová

“When we reckoned things had quietened down for a bit, we ran out of the shelter. On the way, we thought we heard someone yelling. We were in the shelter for just a short moment. A patrol ran up, shouting: ‘Everyone out, up the hill, to the forest! Gas, gas, they hit the gas! Wet towels and leg it uphill.’ We saw people surge out of the city at full tilt. Children screaming, mothers pushing prams with pallid faces. Everyone running as fast as their breath allowed. Anyone with a bike took it and rode off. Fumes, fog everywhere. The neighbour from across the road had four little children. She had two hands, two prams. But because she was German, no one cared if she managed or not. I was already up ahead because I was running to get the wet towels, and then I looked round to see where Mum was. She had gone back to help the German lady with one of the prams. Even though she was fighting for breath herself and puffing hard uphill. Then Dad took over, and I took the two children by their hands, and we ran up the hill. We were there for a long time until the fumes dissipated and things calmed down. Then one more fighter plane flew up, circled around the factory, and flew off again.”

“The Czech Fairy Tale. In an old castle on the Danube stood three gates of iron. For three hundred years the Czech princess sat imprisoned there. Chains bind her hands to the walls of her cell. Brutish guards tortured her, slapped her daily in the fact. The castle’s master was a black bird, a big eagle with two heads. Terrible eyes it had, and each talon on its feet was bloodied, as it fed on Slavic blood. It carried off Czech children to its castle. It ripped their tongues out, as it ate those with special delight. When the princess heard in her prison the children’s lament, she leant out of her window and called for help. For three hundred years she called, agonised in heart and angered in soul. But none awoke, until the Czech lion arose. Until one stormy night a voice broke through the prison’s depth: ‘Princess, my dove, I will free you!’ At that a night passed by the castle, and in the lightning’s strike the eagle saw someone beating with hammer at the castle gate. Who is that beating on my gate? Who disturbs me in these walls? From the gate there came the call: ‘A Czech blacksmith, knight, a Czech!’ The ancient Danube castle rang with terror, cries, and screams. The Czech knight Masaryk enters the castle with his legions. With his first blow he slew the eagle, the second broke the prison clear, the third cut the shackles clear, and thus he spoke to the princess: ‘For three hundred years separated from the motherland, come join us in our new Czech land.’ The end.”