"At that time, when the air raids were going on and a lot of those airmen didn't come back - they were either captured or they died - so they started collecting all the photographs and souvenirs and things like that. And those airmen who were in the RAF - my dad was the founder of that fund - they started saving up. Anyone they could. There are still cash books. It was for the survivors or even for themselves, because they didn't know what fate would bring them, after the war. They didn't have to be healthy either, so they just saved. And this Stefanik fund my dad brought back to the republic and it was about one million three hundred thousand, that was a lot of money at that time. And there are also documents that he then handed it over to the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters with the promise that they would continue it. And then one of those comrades came to him, he was sick and he was without funds. This was about fifty-six years later when I found the letter where he wrote to the Union and names the people who guaranteed that it would still go on as it was meant to. That letter was pretty strict, we were already in the world by then, and he wasn't really worried..."
"He went to General Janoušek because he somehow found out that he had been dismissed and rang there in Mala Štěpánská. And the general opened the door and my father saluted him in the military way and said: 'General, I report for duty!' And then they used to go to the Black Brewery, and they used to meet there in much larger numbers. Somebody was in Prague, somebody from somewhere else came to see them. There was such good staff at the Black Brewery - I was looking for them once and I went into the restaurant in the back block, but there was nobody like that. So I asked the waiters and they wouldn't tell me anything. And it was only afterwards, when I said I was the daughter of an airman, that I was looking for him, that they went and pulled back this huge heavy curtain, it was maybe up to the ceiling. And there they were, actually under the protection of the staff."
"When the Germans came, he was still helping people across the border, he was involved in an underground movement. And then, when it was such a lot, he decided to go too. Out, to fight against Germany. So they wanted to go through Poland first, some books say he went through Poland, but he didn't go through Poland. They went towards Poland, I still have records in his handwriting that they went to Moravian Ostrava, but they had to change direction because they couldn't go through Poland. So they went to Bratislava, then they went to Budapest, and there they were caught by the border guards, so they were arrested and they wanted to return them back to the country. And they explained to them that if they sent them back, they were actually sending them to their death. And my dad said there was a lady countess there and she made the decision to let them go on. So they continued on through Romania, through - I have it written down exactly, maybe even through Turkey. Then they joined the Foreign Legion. With the Foreign Legion, he got to Agde, France, and from there - he was already in the air force in France - he got to England."
Jana Zachová, maiden name Janštová, was born on 29 November 1947 in Prague. Her father was Colonel Karel Janšta, from 1940 a deck gunner of the 311th Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and from 1943 the chairman of the Defence Committee of the Czechoslovak State Council of the government-in-exile in London. Shortly after his return to Czechoslovakia he married Jiřina Řežábková and in 1947 they had a daughter, Jana. Jana recalls her childhood in the 1950s and the flower shop her father ran on Národní třída in Prague, which was nationalised in 1952. At the same time, Karel Janšta was an employee of the Ministry of Defence until 1948, and in the first post-war elections he also stood as a candidate for the Social Democrats in Parliament. After the communist takeover, he left the army and worked manually as an asphalt paver and paver until his retirement. Jana Janštová-Zachová also recalls the difficult period after her parents‘ divorce, when she and her younger brother were entrusted to their father‘s care. Her mother‘s second partner was Zdeněk Bechyně Jr., the son of Zdeněk Bechyně, an officer in the Czechoslovak foreign army, a Social Democrat functionary and a political prisoner from the Rudolf Slánský trial. Her father was also repeatedly interrogated by State Security because of his contacts with Bechyně, but also because of his involvement in the RAF and the Benes government. Jana trained as a milling machine operator, but worked as an operator in several Prague cinemas. Her father was rehabilitated in 1991 and President Václav Havel promoted him to the rank of colonel of the air force in memoriam. Karel Janšta did not live to see the fall of communism, he died in 1986. In 2024, Jana Janštová-Zachová was living in Prague and caring for her father‘s legacy.
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!
