Milena Uhlíková

„It was my tenth birthday when Hitler occupied us. The weather was terrible, it was snowing, it was raining, well, terrible. All of us at that time, us children, we watched like crazy, we didn't understand, we didn't know what was happening, but everyone, the whole barracks and the street, everything was crying. We didn't know if they were going to bomb us or what. It made us all feel awful. Then they took us. I say, there was a decent house, only lawyers, freeholders lived there... I tell you, the Jews also lived there, so I lost a friend from there. Some relatives from Romania asked about them after the war. We said, unfortunately, they didn't come back, nobody knows anything about them. She was a year older than me, she drew wonderfully, Adéla...“

„In the morning of 1968, I woke up at night because they were flying over Smíchov, at three o'clock in the morning. I say Jesus Christ... So I immediately called Jarda, that friend who is in Switzerland, they lived not far from us there in Nikolajka. I say, Jardo, open your window and listen, there are fucking Russians here. What are you talking about? You're drunk, aren't you? I say, I am not, listen to how we are occupied under the Germans. In the morning we were at work at six or seven already, even though we usually went to work at eight, we didn't have any time punch clocks there. It was quite benevolent there, because we had to do it anyway. Or suddenly someone came there, an individual or the delegation or whoever, so we had to stay there to write what was needed right away, to bring the coffee and so on. So we were almost all there in Lobkowicz Palace early in the morning. When I went to work, no trams were running, when I went from Smíchov past the Štefánik barracks, down there near Kinsky, there was already a group of the Red Army, tanks everywhere, all the fucking Russians were there.“

„I didn't know that aunt in America. The Viennese aunt, yes, we went there while she was alive, when they opened the borders, so we went to see her in Vienna about two or three times a year, but the American one... I was able to go there in 1948 after the war, but I got married at forty-nine. Before that, when I met Uhlík, we could go there, but he came from the military and they didn't let soldiers in, he had to wait for about three years after the military before he could travel. At that time, my aunt sent me some papers that she would pay for everything, like the trip, that it would not cost anyone anything. It's just that they didn't let me go. I wanted to get married right then, but they said it wasn’t possible, so we didn't go anywhere.“