Zdeňka Peterka

"Maybe it was lucky that he was only in Brno, in the Kounic's dormitories, for a month. Because we all know how the Germans tortured people. Sometimes, I think, at least he didn't suffer so long. Of course, the Germans didn't even let us know that my father had been executed. A neighbour came to our house with a newspaper and showed my mother the article: 'Mrs. Luhan, it says here that your husband was executed.' I still didn't know what it was - executed. I saw my mother sitting in the room crying. I was in the room, I cried, too. And that's how it ended with Daddy. Someone I know who was present at the executions - he wasn't the only executed one - said that Daddy's last sentence, when the soldiers were already standing in front of him with their rifles drawn, he shouted, 'Long live the Czechoslovak Republic.'

"A policeman came to see my mother to see if Mr Luhan was home. Mummy said, 'He's not,' and he truly wasn't. The Germans wanted him there. And all I know is, Mummy said that the policeman said, 'Mrs Luhanová, don't let him go there, they'll lock him up.' But Daddy, when he came back in the evening, and Mummy told him, he said, 'No, I'll go there. If I didn't go there, they would arrest you and prosecute the family.' I know I was already in my bed in the bedroom - and I can still see the door from the kitchen open. A big bright rectangle. Daddy walked in the door, he was tall almost to the top of the door. He came to my bed, picked me up, gave me a kiss - and that was the last time I saw Daddy."