“Esenbák pro mě tehdy přijel přesně. Jela jsem s ním tramvají na Bory. Tam bylo pozdvižení. Oni o tom nevěděli, že přijedeme. Křik, to se všechno rozléhalo. ,Kam je dáme, kam je dáme?’ A pak jsem slyšela: ,Do staré návštěvní místnosti.’ Tak nás odvedli jako první. To byla delší místrnost, rozdělená takovým nízkým dřevěným plůtkem. Tady seděl bachař, tady jsem seděla já a tam byl plůtek. Já jsem viděla, na druhém konci že jsou dvířka. To jsem si nechala úplně na konec. Za chvíli přišli dva muži a každý mjěl svého bachaře. Měli na sobě, říkalo se tomu bílý cvilink, to bylo bílé plátno, bavlna. Oni ani nevěděli, jak je to zdravé. Ono mělo bílou barvu, oni byli bílí, ačkoliv můj muž byl vždycky opálený, tatínek ještě bílé vlasy, manžel, tedy snoubenec, už byl prošedivělý. Oči jako by byly dvakrát tak velké. Hubení. Všechno na nich plandalo. A byli perplex, neoholení. Oni nikoho nečekali. Oni prej, to jsem se dozvěděla až mnohem později, na chodbě: ,Ty máš návštěvu?’,Ty máš návštěvu?’ ,Nemám.’ ,Já taky nemám.’ To byla velká otázka, co je čeká. A čekala jsem je já. A oni neměli slov. Oni prostě neměli slov. Kdybych nemluvila já, tak by asi bachaři řekli konec návštěvy a běžte na cely. Já jsem povídala, povídala až oni se konečně chytli a taky něco řekli. Nemůžu říct, že to byl dialog, ale nějaká ta mluva mezi námi. V duchu jsem si říkala, to se mi povedlo, jednou, to byl husarský kousek, to už se mi nikdy nepovede. Musím na ně koukat a něco jim říkat. Až zaznělo ,konec návštěvy’ a to je jako kdyby vám znovu vzali rodinu. A než šli, tak to rozloučení, já jsem využila těch dvířek, prostě jsem tam vrazila, objala jsem tatínka, křičeli, ale nechala jsem je křičet, i svého snoubence. Nemohli mě tam zavřít. Tím ta grandiózní návštěva skončila.”
“The wind was blowing and we hid under the entrance of the A block. And we thought, 'Jirina, if we had at least one green twig. Yes, only one twig would suffice. 'You won't believe me, but the twig fell down to our laces due to the December wind. But it wasn't a splinter ... It was a twig. We hid the twig, and then I wrote a short story. The twig must have been exchanged for something secretly or found somewhere, the girls went to the cleaning office in Pardubice, they might have stolen it, or someone was lucky to have brought it since the visit… But back in 1913 there wasn't even a blade of grass that would resemble nature. These were bare gray ugly tall cells. Whoever brought it, had it tied outside the window. These were three-story buildings. What hung from outside was not visible. The twig just fell down to our feet. We hid it and said nothing in the cell.
And when it was Christmas Eve, thanks to Jiřina Fárková, who had an excellent soprano, we had quietly rehearsed Christmas carols and we were singing Christmas carols very quietly after the party, we pulled out a little twig, the girls were watching, we were twenty-six on that cell of the size of 8 times 5 metres, wondering where we got the twig.”
“I spoke in 1939 and it was Crystal Night, in Teplice. Namely - I knew the exact number of how many families were attacked, but today I could not say the exact number. Our family was attacked three times that night. Nazis in uniforms, long iron bars. Our parents were after the flu and were not at home, and my uncle got an echo in the evening and was ready for them. He didn't even go to sleep, hiding three times in various places to keep him from being caught. Fortunately, they had no dogs. And the weather was such that the snow-smelting clogged his tracks that night so his uncle could hide in the woodshed, then elsewhere. There were no traces in the snow. My two children, my sister was 9 and a half, I was 14 and a half, we went to see who had the blatant audacity to come to our house making such a big noise. They hacked the big house gate with iron bars, it was actually a passage, the bashing could be heard throughout the house. We couldn't imagine the horror. Everything was smashed by the bars, that is why it was called the crystal night. Thousands of shards everywhere; destroyed furniture. These were two-storey workshops, all the glass was smashed all over the ground floor. We went to see them. There were the last steps between us. They stood as in the Rembrandt's painting, stood as if they had flags, but they only had the iron bars. We looked into their eyes and they looked to us. They didn't expect that.”
“Byla jsem u raportu jako na vojně, přede mnou rozevřená velká, převeliká kniha a tam byl zapsán trest: na moje svobodné jméno, Hana Johnová, 10 tvrdých loží, poloviční strava, korekce na Pankráci. A za co? Jelikož jsem takhle mávala na svého otce a na svého snoubence v podzemí Pankráce, když nás vedli střídavě zas do cely a pak zas do soudní síně. A mně bylo jasné, že se nemůžeme na léta rozloučit ruky tiskem, obejmutím, ani náhodou. Využila jsem té situace kroucení cesty, pootočila jsem, zamávala jsem a bachař mě okřiknul. A já jsem mu řekla, že se budu hlásit ke svým rodičům kdykoliv a kdekoliv. A kráčela jsem na vysokých podpatcích dál. A on mě dal k raportu. Příští ráno už jsem byla v eráru a měla jsem šátek na babku. Vedle mě tam mladý bachař, otevřel mi dveře, já jsem přišla dovnitř a řekla jsem: “Dobrý den.” “Ven! Ven!” Ale já jsem nevěděla proč. Bachař mi to nevysvětlil. A já jsem znovu řekla: ,Dobrý den.’ ,Ven!’ A pak mě onen bachař přede dveřmi teprve instruoval, že nemohu pozdravit pozdravem ,dobrý den’, ale musím se ohlásit svým číslem. Už nevím, jaké jsem měla to číslo na Pankráci. Takže jsem se potřetí, když jsem tam kráčela, ohlásila svým pankráckým číslem, a teprve poté to bylo OK.”
“That's why I wasn't even worried when the Communists punished me by the dark room in the station. I didn't know it was called that way. They pushed me somewhere where there was no light, there was wet ground. I had to walk, but there were no plaster walls, I felt that. I was given half the food, and it was served in a rubber pot in which the dentists were mixing amalgam at that time. They didn't gibe me any tin spoon to eat with because the guard couldn't see me. There was a peephole, but it was dark. I could break the spoon and even hurt myself. And I was a valuable prisoner, they needed me to count.
The self-preservation instinct is strong if one wants to survive at all costs. So I always managed to feed myself in some way out of the rubber container. That was half the diet. There was no toilet, so the prisoner didn't even know what was on the floor. I haven't talked about that for years. Not even about the nine years I spent in jail. Because no one except me spoke of any darkness.”
Hana Truncová witnessed dramas in the Czech borderland in the 1930s and 1940s and was a political prisoner in the 1950s. She was born as Hana Johnová on August 23, 1924, in the family of John John, who ran a large carpentry in Teplice. She and her family maintained friendly and business contacts with local Czechs, Germans and Jews. After the borderland was taken over, the family remained in Teplice, so the witness, for example, became a witness to the pogrom known later as Crystal Night in 1938. Already after 1945 Hana Johnová considered emigration because she did not share the inclination to the Communist Party, which at that time dominated the region. After 1948 she cooperated with a smuggler and helped several people to emigrate. In 1951 she, her father and her fiancé Otakar Čeněk Trunec were arrested and sentenced for high treason and espionage. Hana Johnová was sentenced to a thirteen-year sentence in working units in Kladno, Jilemnice and Varnsdorf and in Pardubice prison. She was released in early 1960 on probation before the coming amnesty. She married Otakar Cenek Trunec and they lived together in the village of Bohosudov. She worked as an auxiliary force in the manger, after 1968 as a clerk in the Čedok branch in Teplice. Once again, she helped several people to get abroad, thanks to her work in Čedok she could get them tickets. After 1989 she was involved in the organization of the Daughters of Political Prisoners, talked about her story at school discussions, and performed at the Mene Tekel festival. Hana Truncová passed away on April, the 7th, 2022.
