“We, the children of Sokol members from the Mělník area who had been executed, didn’t know each other at all. We got to know each other during the Prague Spring in 1968. We were invited to the Slovanský dům for lunch, the writer Ivanov was also invited there among others, and he wrote a nice inscription into his book for me, and we were all introduced there. There were children of Sokols who had been executed, but I also met the children of Mr. Valčík there, he had been helping the paratroopers, and I still keep in touch with them. There were 80 of us there that day.”
“The other day was holiday (Dec 25, 1942) and I went to Krč. I hoped I would get there somehow. I looked into the fist gatehouse, and there were only German soldiers and nurses, nobody went there, and so I walked around the building and I saw an open gate and there were several German soldiers and nurses in white uniforms standing behind a table and registering ID cards of incoming people. I couldn’t tell them whom I was going to see, and thus I was just standing there and then I joined some people who were already registered. I entered with them, I was afraid to look back. We came into a large hall, there were doctors and nurses, and when you entered, you had to show your hands and open your mouth, and so I did the same as the others, and we finally came to the end of the hall. There were two head nurses and they were asking people whom they were going to see. The other people mentioned some names, and I waited at the end of the line. Then I just stood in front of the head sister and I was looking into her eyes and not saying anything. She told me to go the toilet and wait inside, she would come for me. I was waiting there for quite a long time, and she eventually came and told me not to be afraid and to say the name. When I told her the name Janička Nitková, she answered: ´She’s here, ja.´”
“I am keen fan of tourism, and thus I tried to learn German, but it simply was not possible. I have learnt English, Italian, Croatian, Serbian, but I was not able to learn German. I don’t even realize when I learnt about my parents’ fate; it was probably my stepmother who told me this when she was bringing me up, but I don’t remember when it was.”
“Jana Nitková had been interned together with the children from Lidice for three and a half years, she was terribly thin, she weighted only 10 kilograms. She was scared of everything, she was afraid, she didn’t speak at all, then she started speaking, but she was stammering. Later it improved, and so I enrolled her in school when she was six years old. At the beginning, the teacher in the school in Prague, Mrs. Pokorná, let her sit on her lap behind the table during the class, later Jana grew accustomed to it. The teacher said that she was a smart girl, and that she was good at drawing, but that she was drawing with her left hand. Thus it gradually improved with time.”
“Heydrich was assassinated in 1942, and the assassination was carried out by Czech paratroopers who had been airlifted here from England. As I was told, in Kostelec nad Labem and its environs, and also in Neratovice and Všetaty, food stamps and other things were being collected. They were collected for the paratroopers who were hiding in the church in Resslova Street. The Sokol men knew for whom these food stamps were, but their wives didn’t know anything. They didn’t even know that their husbands were involved in some resistance activity. My Mom learnt this only on July 23, 1942, when my Dad was arrested at the railway station in Neratovice.”
Jana Vávrová, née Nitková, was born June 29, 1941 in Prague. She lived with her parents in Kostelec nad Labem. Her mother was a seamstress and she had a dressmaker’s shop in Kostelec. Her father was working with his parents, who owned a haberdashery shop. He was a long-time member of Sokol. During the Protectorate he already held the rank of a Sokol chief. The local Sokol club in Mělník was involved in helping the paratroopers who had assassinated R. Heydrich. Jana’s father was collecting food stamps from people in order to ensure a supply of food to the assassins. He and other local Sokol functionaries were found by the Gestapo and arrested at the railway station in Neratovice on June 23, 1942. Mother and little Jana were arrested two months later, on August 27, 1942. Both were taken to the Petschek Palace in Prague (Gestapo headquarters - transl.’s note). The Gestapo members used a sly trick to take the one-year old baby from her mother. Jana’s parents were executed by the Nazis in the Mauthausen concentration camp on October 24, 1942 together with other members of Sokol from the Mělník region. Little Jana was placed in the infants hospital in Prague-Krč. Her aunt Mrs. Maršálková, the sister of Jana’s mother, found her there in December 1942. She has been searching for her niece since the summer of 1942. On May 5, 1945 her aunt came to the hospital in Krč with a repatriation decree to pick up Jana. The situation in Krč however didn’t allow her to take Jana with her at the moment. During the Prague Uprising, Jana had to stay in the infants hospital, but as soon as it became possible, the aunt and her husband came to pick her up and they adopted her. The Maršáleks didn’t have their own children yet; their son was born after the war, but he didn’t accept his older step sister. After elementary school, Jana Nitková did vocational training in ČKD Stalingrad. She subsequently worked there for seven years as a clerk. Then she briefly worked in the Research Institute for Heavy Industry, and then as a secretary in the Léčiva company. From 1969 she was working in the Youth Travel Agency, she passed exams for tour guides and then travelled as a guide. From 1972 she was working in the ČSA Czech Airlines in Prague at various positions, for the longest time in the marketing department for countries of Africa.
