"During the war? They were beating him right in front of me. My father was a rebel, you know? They tore his lip and as I, a twelve-year-old, approached to wipe it off for him, the Gestapo man grabbed me and threw me against the coach. Then they took my Dad to the Petschek Palace (Prague Gestapo headquarters – transl.’s note). But afterwards, after the war, my father didn’t even want to apply to join the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters, because there were all communists there."
"My Dad moved to the Wenceslas Square already during the totalitarian regime. His place on the corner of Washington Street and the Wenceslas Square next to the Museum was an outright provocation for them, and on top of that he had a large radio business there. On the first floor were the workshops, and so on. His shop came to an end there. My uncle had handed over his shop on Národní Street and he was allowed to remain in the Fotografie company. But my father was adamant, and he didn’t surrender his business. Then they found out that he had cooperated with that group, that he had been making radio transmitters for them. Everything thus came to an end for us."
"The Austrian watch was passing just seven steps from my tent. We were on the Austrian side. We also took the Eagle Feathers Test there. One day they took us to different places in canoes so that we would not know where we were. I had no idea where my sister was. We had a whistle, and a torch light, I don’t know why. At midnight it started raining..."
Věra Kocurková was born August 6, 1930 in Prague in the family of Václav Košík, a tradesman from Prague who was a radio salesman. He joined the anti-Nazi resistance during WWII and after the Communist coup d‘état in 1948 he helped a resistance group construct a radio transmitter. He was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in Leopoldov, which was one of the harshest camps. Věra Kocurková was a member of the 18th Scout group in Prague called KRUH (Circle) in 1945-1948. Since the 1990s she has been involved in the Association of Former Political Prisoners and in the association Daughters of the 1950s.
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!
