"My father was executed because he was one of the eminent citizens of the town of Benešov. For example, he was among those who welcomed President Masaryk at the Benešov station when he was returning to his homeland from abroad in 1918. He got off the train there to greet his friends (the family Veselý). To sum it up my father was one of the local dignitaries. And from what we learned, he should have been arrested already during that clampdown in September 1939 but someone crossed out his name on the list. Well, then he was arrested in June 1942 when they said that for every one thousand town citizens one of the prominent personalities was to be executed. The head of the hospital, the headmaster of the secondary school and my father among them. So, the first years were enjoyable, idyllic and joyful. In the year 1942, all this changed. The situation started to be harder: some people, even the Czechs, no longer spoke to my mother, they avoided her in the street and at that time the Protestant priest visited us to ask if we needed anything. This was the beginning of my contacts with Protestant Church of which I have been a member ever since."
Apart from that, we used to go to theatres and enjoy cultural events in Prague. My uncle showed me architectural monuments (I feel very grateful to him) because he was a mining engineer, so thanks to him I am fond of stone work. My uncle was also a victim, I can tell you. After the war, he became one of the directors of the Jáchymov Mines and was accused by the Russians of slowing down the production because he insisted on timbering and safety measures in the tunnels. He was transferred to Kutná Hora and arrested there some time in January 1950. After the court process he was sentenced to 24 years. After some four and a half years, when he had gone through Opava and Mírov, I think, well all these places. He ended up in Opava when they announced to my aunt that he had hanged himself on his tie when the other prisoners had left the cell to see a film. This being the 1950s, we all saw clearly how this could have happened. Now it was our turn to make it up to them as he had a son not even three years old. He then grew up with us in Benešov until he was 15.
"My son has completed his medical studies and I think he is quite a competent doctor. For some time he used to be the personal doctor of Václav Havel until his very end. He accompanied him on several travels abroad …well, there are a few stories I´d better not tell them myself but leave it to him because his injuries during the trips to the East were not simple. I know about a flight from India when he was kneeling behind his seat with oxygen and they were about to land when they found out they were flying above Teheran and so decided to fly on. Well, in the meantime he recovered so that when they arrived in Ruzyně it was better, but it was rather hard.. He was also in Taiwan with him. There he underwent an injury but a really nasty one and when he was sewing something, his bodyguards said – shouldn´t we call a doctor? But in fact, everything ended well in the end. Yes, later he worked as a senior consultant at the Department of Neurology in Kladno but its head, this time in prison, advertised a competition for the post but he didn´t take part. Well, the fate plays fairly with us and puts us onto the right place because if he was to travel daily to Hrádeček to see Havel in his last days, he wouldn´t have been able to manage the work of a senior consultant at the same time."
Hana Bouzková was born as Hana Fuksová on 13th August 1935 in Benešov into a family of the Director of the Regional Health Insurance and prominent representative of the local branch of the National Socialist Party. The good childhood time spent with her parents and grandparents ended in 1942 when her father was executed during the Heydrich Terror period. The family decided to escape to Prague and lived for the rest of the war at their relatives´ - 7 people in a one-room flat. After the war, they returned to Benešov. In 1950, the witness´s uncle was sentenced to 24 years and after some time the relatives were informed that he had committed suicide. The family lived in straitened circumstances, supported each other and the witness succeeded in completing her Gymnasium studies and Charles University, Faculty of Philosophy, Prague. However, she was not allowed to teach at Gymnasiums, only at Basic Schools. It was only in 1968 when she could get her first teaching post at gymnasium. Since she was 10, she has been active in the Scouting Movement, also in the time when the Movement was officially banned. Until now, she has been leading the honorary Svojsík Unit. She has received a high Scouting award for her work.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
