Dagmar Renertová

"The year 1953 was coming, that was after the February 'victory'. Dad was fired from the army, ordered to evacuate the military apartment and move to the border within a fortnight, where I have the impression that they have offered him a job in a collective farm. So the colonel could work in the collective farm... But here again Mrs. Alba Bedřichová was there, who said: "Well, you won't go anywhere to the border, as I live here alone; we are a family." So we stayed in Řevnice."

"In the meantime, my mother left Ravensbrück as part of a transport of death, and that was to take place all the way to the Baltic Sea, for the prisoners to embark and get blown up. That was the plan. However, on the way to certain death, they were liberated by the Red Army. But meanwhile, my mother got typhus, so somewhere in Germany she went to the hospital. There, Alba Bedřichová was selflessly caring for her. When she got a bit better, they got to Řevnice through the repatriation office, where in the meantime, before we got the apartment, my mother lived with Miss Bedřichová. We came here to welcome her from Wallachia. That's how we met for the first time."

"The end of the unfortunate era of the protectorate is approaching. It was the year 1945 and Dad ended up in the prison in Creussen. It was a prison, where prisoners worked in a factory for the production of ammunition and weapons. And at that time, everyone believed that they would be liberated and that the weapons could make things easier for them as well. So - I'll use the word theft - they stole material, like parts of weapons and ammunition, and made a kind of a safe under the floor; ripped out planks and hid stuff under that floor. Their wish came true. They were waiting for the arrival of the US military. The US military was approaching led by the General Patton - and I must say he is my darling. All the prisoners who were physically capable made a sort of an uprising, disarmed their guards, and went to meet the American military. And my dad immediately joined the army. He was personally honoured by General Patton during the liberation of the town of Aš."