Antonín Havlík

“When Prague called for help at about half past twelve, along with my cousin, who was a year older, we went to the station. There we met a group of people who claimed to be the Revolutionary National Committee. They were going to the National Committee (the town hall in Dobřichovice), so they took us as connections. So we spent those May days at the National Committee as couriers, operating when they needed to deliver or sort something out. A part of the SS army was passing through Dobřichovice, which was originally in Prague, but when the “Vlasovci” group arrived, there was some negotiations with the Prague representatives and in Lahovice they started to turn back and a part of them went past Dobřichovice westwards.”

“These were gradual steps. Daddy, of course, had a licensing business for the mill, and first they forbade us to do business milling. Then they forbade us to grind on your own account, we did it just for the business, which supplied the grain. We gave it to the merchants, and they sold it to you. They only paid you wages. The rent, as I said, was only in the amount of the insurance fee. So that difficult to pay. So gradually it was decreasing. At first this way, then the father became only a staff member. Then came the nationalization on 1st January 1953. The advantage was that they returned it back to us later. If it were nationalized in 1945 under the Energy Act, we would have to buy it back. Only what was nationalized after 1948 was given back.”