Alena Jiroušková

“One day early in the morning I suddenly heard a terrible cry. I got up from my children’s bed and ran into the kitchen and there I found my mom lying on the ground and screaming: ‘They killed our daddy.’ Something happened with me at that moment: as if darkness engulfed me. It was strange, because I have forgotten absolutely everything. I forgot how we had played with dad, sung together, exercised together. Of course I knew that I my father had been there, but some kind of a wall was erected and it was over. No memory, nothing. Only many years later I understood that it was actually a defence mechanism of my child’s body to prevent it from a collapse”

“One day he came to us and announced: ‘Russians are here.’ We all ran out of the basement and there were six Russian soldiers standing there. They had submachine guns over their shoulders and they were looking around; they were some vanguard. People immediately began offering them plum brandy and whatever they had, but the soldiers didn’t take anything. They didn’t take anything from us, because they did not trust us, they did not know who we were. Then the uncle who had been on the Russian front began speaking to them in Russian and we could see that the tension was going away. It occurred to him to take some of the food and put it into his mouth, and he drank some of the plum brandy. When they saw that the food was not poisoned, they immediately began to feast with us. Then the fun went on and we even began learning Russian.”