"I was there [in the cellar], I just always went upstairs to the apartment to eat and drink something, because it was hard to bring drinks and food into the basement, there were a lot of stairs. I even slept in the cellar, my aunt prepared me bed there. There was a big park there, and from the opposite houses they were shooting at our houses. Some people paid the price. So, the people from that house barricaded the big windows with cupboards, they lived there on the ground floor in the dark, with only artificial light. And the children were hidden in the cellars, sleeping there too. They just came upstairs to drink and to go to toilet. It lasted about four or five days."
"I also had a personal experience, I couldn't understand it at all... A young Czech boxer lived in the house, he was wounded by a shot from the opposite houses, he was bleeding and was not treated. They tried to help him at home, but still - before the ambulance arrived (there was a maternity sanatorium nearby) - he was repeatedly losing consciousness and collapsing. My aunt left me with him to keep watch and give them the news, and my aunt reported it to the first aid station. When they arrived, he was unconscious. They took him away and the Germans - even though it was first aid, there was a cross - shot the driver, and the boxer. So, then people dragged them to the hospital facility, but it was too late, they both bled to death."
"... Yes, they were executed, except Father Petřek. [Father Gorazd and Sonnevend] were executed on September 4, 1942. Father Petřek, the chaplain who arranged it, only the next day. They were shot at the shooting range in Kobylisy. - "You knew them personally?" - "The two priests taught me religion. Father Petřek, Brother Sonnevend, he was always present in the church. And priest Gorazd used to go among the children and the teenagers and always listened to how religion was taught." - "And what were these people like?" - "They were very nice, Father Petřek was younger than his colleague [Sonnevend] who was the spiritual superior, and they also had families and children, because in Orthodoxy, before you decide lead a spiritual life, you must first find a partner and get married."
Věra Topičová was born on 8 September 1932 into the family of Petar Bradić, a Yugoslav diplomat and employee of the embassy in Prague, thanks to whom she had Yugoslav citizenship. From her childhood she attended the Orthodox Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral in Resslova Street, where the paratroopers were caught by the Gestapo after the assassination of Heydrich. She lived through the Prague Uprising in May 1945 as a child in the cellar of her aunt’s house in Prague 6. All her life she devoted herself to singing, taking private lessons with prof. M. Fridrich, later with prof. Zdeněk Otava from AMU. She sang in this country and abroad (England, France, Switzerland, Italy). Between 1957 and 1960 she was monitored by the State Security (StB) as a potential agent of the West. In 1960 she married Kristián Topič, the dramaturg and director of the Krátký film. From the late 1950s until her retirement in 2000, she worked for the Orthodox Church as an accountant and interpreter from German, Serbo-Croatian, Russian and English.
