RNDr., CSc. Jiří Grygar

“We all listened to the radio. Dad and mum listened to London every night. I knew they were listening to something different from what was on the radio normally during the day. My sister way younger; we used to sleep in the children’s room. The door was half open, so that if my little sister whimpered, mum or dad heard her and knew they should have a look. They listened to the evening programme; it took an hour. They had to listen carefully, so nobody else could hear it. They wrapped the radio in a blanket and got under the blanket. But my hearing was very good, so I could hear it. It really caught my attention because it was in Czech and said things that were not on the radio in daytime. When mum was cooking lunch, I would get under the table and play with pots. I hit them rhythmically. All of a sudden, I said: ‘Boom boom boom boom. You are listening to the evening programme of the British Radio in Czech.’ Mum was scared. She didn’t know I knew how to read. She was a teacher. She had this principle that children should not be taught before going to school because otherwise they would be bored and thus naughty in school. It really angered me. I wanted to read, and when I found out about letters, it was very important to me. I learned this way: There is something special about Brno, in that every single house number includes the street name. No other city or town has that. So, I learned what they allowed me to – the address I lived at: Venhudova 17 – in case I got lost. I got the clue that the letters were phonetical, so that’s how I learned them. Then, I was so cunning that when we walked various streets on Sunday afternoons, I would ask for the streets’ names and look at the plates to see how it’s written. I knew how to read in about six weeks. Lidové noviny used to publish a two-page spread for children on Sundays. When I was nice, dad would read it for me. When I was not, it was over. I had to work around this. So, I learned to read. I kept it to myself until that day when I said the sentence to mum: ‘You are listening to…’ Mum told me: ‘Don’t ever say that to anyone, Jiří.’ I said: ‘I know. The plate on the radio says: »Remember that listening to foreign radio is punished by imprisonment or death«, so I know I’m not supposed to say that.’ After that, my parents allowed me to get under the blanket with them and listen to London along with them.”

“The Germans were mainly after dad; he wore the Czechoslovak customs service uniform, which looked a lot like the military uniform. His uniform just drove them crazy. That’s why we were forced to flee – they would really kill us eventually. They fired shots at dad.”