Emilie Prošková

“I saw hanged people. It didn’t just happen inside, in court – they also did it outside. It was outdoors, but not directly in the square: it was by the side of the building. There were gallows there and they hanged people there. I saw them. Our parents forbade us to look at them, but I did see them.”

“When we came to Zelená liška, the Nazis were already there. We didn’t know where to go, so we stayed there. They said: ‘Go in this house, but don’t leave! You may go in, but you mustn’t leave!’ We stayed in. The house was empty. The father went to the cellar and said there were shot people in the cellar. The parents took a blanket and diapers from a pram on the entrance platform and made a bed for us three children in the corridor. In the morning, the father went to the cellar again. He found that there was a hole driven through the wall in the cellar, connecting it with the next house. [...] The Red Cross was there, and they were taking injured people out and trying to keep them alive.”

“Then it calmed down and we went to the Seidls’ place. Then the Nazis already knew they were losing; we went to the cellar and sat on a heap of coal, and I wished so much to hide in the coal heap because the Nazis ran along the cellar aisle with rifles and yelled they’d shoot us all.”