“Well, they began to pray, they knelt and they began to pray: Archangel Gabriel, protect us from all the tricks of the Devil, may Lord command him, we do beg you in all humility, so you will throw Satan and all the wicked right into Hell' – And they kept doing this without stooping, again and again. And then my parents understood, as they told me later, and people understood as well, and they all began to kneel. And the secret policeman stood mainly in the front near the pulpit, trying to boo him off. But Beran knew that and he outsmarted them. He had to have some connection in the State Security, but later, they took revenge on him, they transported him at night. And Mrs Brožová had something to do with that... But that scene, as those men came, dressed in those leather jackets, and when they saw what was happening, they were stepping over people so they could reach columns where they could hide so they couldn't be seen so easily among the people who were kneeling.”
“Ira and my mother were the only ones to survive. And my brother, he was in the eighth grade, but he had to work in some factories most of the time, and from time to time he did a two month service at Todt, that was this organisation, and he also helped to dig out Ira, they were the only ones in the house to survive.”
“Fortunately, we hadn't been affected directly, there was this cousin, it was a half-cousin in fact, his mother was my mother's cousin, and they would beat him up in the Pankrác prison, so my aunt came crying. And maybe they did it on purpose that they brought him to her in such a state. Or there was this other case, that they sent, as the prisoner had died already, most often they died of pneumonia, they would send his bloody shirt, stating that his mother should send a new one, they didn't have to do that, they could just burn the old one, but it seems that they enjoyed it in a way. But if he did confess, that I didn't know. He was imprisoned in Dresden and he survived. As there was quite a difference between this prison in Germany and a concentration camp where they truly tried to kill everyone. So, people who survived were mostly held in prisons. And he came back, he was skinny, his head was shaven, but he was alive.”
Milena Urbánková Borská was born on September 27th, 1928, in Prague. Her father changed his German name, Bernreiter, to Czech sounding Borský. Her parents had a small sweets shop in the Prague’s district of Vinohrady. Milena went to a church school and after that she studied at a business school. During the war, she was ‘totally deployed’ in the Aero Letňany manufacturing plant, she took part in the Prague uprising. She was a member of the Scout troop led by Mr and Mrs Skála who were imprisoned after 1948. She also witnessed a Mass celebrated by cardinal Beran shortly after he was interned.
