Pavel Hejcman

“One young friend came from the factory, he was the chauffeur of Hauptmann Tham. That was the military commander of ČKD. He came in [Tham’s] car and said: ‘Tham’s legged it already, so I’ve taken his car and I’m off home. But I can’t get through, the barricades are everywhere.’ And we needed to distribute the lunch. There was freshly cooked stew in buckets, and bread. Everything for free. So he says: ‘Come on, I’ll distribute it with you.’ We loaded it up and drove round the barricades. And that’s how it was for the next few days. He knew where the food stores were. We loaded up cigarette at the port in Maniny, and we distributed them; cans too. There were several of us youngsters. One was Swiss, his father was a chauffeur at the Swiss embassy. He attended Czech school together with his sister Eva, so he came and said: ‘I’ll bring a signboard of the International Red Cross and we’ll go all over Prague and see what all’s going on.’ And so he did. He brought a big poster with Comité international de la Croix-Rouge. Back then the Red Cross was headed by Mr Montadone, who later became president of the whole Red Cross. So we pasted it over the German car which that Honza Pašek had obtained, and we really did drive round all the barricades supplying them with food.”

“I was near the English boarding house, which stood on the edge of Libeň opposite the football pitch, and I saw some workers arrive there from Českomoravská. I followed them. The boarding house functioned as the headquarters of the Hitlerjugend. They wanted to assault it to gain weapons. There was some gunfire, but when hand grenades started flying, the Hitlerjugend surrendered. They put out a white flag and negotiations began. That they would surrender if they would be released and allowed to join the barracks in Karlín, where there was a German military garrison. They agreed to that, but first the wounded had to be tended to. They were children. And so we created a medical facility in our street, where Dr Svatoš lived with his wife. They saw to the boys, and then, because barricades were being built all over the place, they were allowed free passage to Karlín to their military unit. The medical facility remained there and we helped build barricades and supply food. There was stew and soups, and we distributed it.”

“There was a meeting in the factory, and we had already agreed with a number of workers that with regard to the Russians’ arrival we would quit the party. We were all young people, some five or six of us. The party organisation had about ten fifteen people. We were afraid that if one person quit by himself, he might be punished. But we reckoned that if half the organisation would quit, it would be okay. So the meeting took place, and when we had discussed everything on the agenda, I stood up and addressed the chairman: ‘I would like to quit the party. Here is my membership card.’ And now the others were supposed to do the same. But of course that didn’t happen. Everyone sat on their bum and stared out at the factory roof. No one said a word. And so he looked around, I won’t say his name, and he asked: ‘No one else?’ Silence. No one else. So he took the membership card and said: ‘Fine. Does the plenary agree to him quitting the party?’ Everyone raised their hand, everyone agreed. And then I was fired.”

“The air raids were every day, but not always with bombing. So we wouldn’t hide in the bunker. Not until later, when they started proper, we’d leg it to cover. Everything shook, and suddenly it was dark. That was back at our house. We’d legged it to the cellar. Suddenly - darkness. It lasted maybe an hour, I don’t know exactly. When it finished, they called the all clear. We came out. The sky was black, burnt pieces of paper were falling gently like snowflakes. Burnt bank notes. It was before pay day. Invoices, all sorts of paper documentation. Machine drawings, everything had burnt. Because there was a paint factory close by. It’d blown up and the blaze had spread, ’til it was all one torch. The wind blew it for kilometres around. We didn’t go look until morning; it was unbelievable. There was one engine, a locomotive that is - locomotives were also made there. Everything was made there. Just imagine, the rails were twisted like this, standing tall like trees. There was a row of tenement houses opposite the factory, they only had their windows broken. They were almost untouched, so it shows they had it targeted accurately. Except I left one of my friends there, Milíč was his name, he was on duty. There were anti-air patrols in the streets, and it happened to be his turn on that Sunday; he hid in the concrete bunker [of the ČKD factory]. But that all disappeared, him too, everything.”