"We knew they were there. We knew it because... I don't know how Jolanka or Boris found out. They were younger. But I knew it because I was like that… First of all, when I was sitting on the couch, my hands just went into that hole. And second of all, I saw them. One night I was going from my bedroom to the bathroom, and associate professor Krajina was just coming out. When I had the mumps, he sat by me and fed me. Or we'd play games together in the evening. We knew there was somebody in there and that we weren't allowed to tell anyone about it. We were simply a family."
"In 1948, at 5:30 in the morning, the State Security came here, right, I mean the Czech police officers, State Security agents, they arrested him, they took him away. At half past seven they came again from the... from the post office and they disconnected our telephone. And as they said the reactionaries were preparing a coup, that was how they were doing it. And when they arrested him here, they brought him to Laufrovka, there was a prison in Laufer Street, and so my grandfather said that it was already full from what the communists had already brought there."
"Well, I can tell you that we were just in Veselí, we had a little cabin there. And my sister was just there with her child, and also my niece, my brother’s daughter. There were a lot of us. And suddenly my brother-in-law, Jolana's husband, came and said that there was an occupation, that we are now being occupied. We said: 'Germans, right?' It was absolutely calm there, it was a little valley, I recommend you to go there, it's a beautiful little valley. And so we didn't believe it, they said, 'No, Russians.' We all got into one car and we went and that's when we met the tanks, right, we met the tanks. Here below Ještěd at Záskalí, there was an artillery gun pointing at Ještěd, because Russians probably didn't know what it was anyway."
"They never had to suffer in their lives, so they made others suffer. They said they were the heroes and those were just some Germans. To tell you the truth... I like Czechs. I like Czechoslovakia very much. There's no country more beautiful than Czechoslovakia, or Czechia nowadays, but Slovakia is simply a part of it. I loved that. But to tell you the truth I hate Communists more than Germans. Because Germans were our enemies, and so they treated us as enemies. Whereas the Communists were our people. And they behaved terribly, some of them. For example, when I see old soldiers who fought for the Republic on the news, they only started to show them respect after the 80s. Before that, they were persecuted and bullied. And I can never forgive them for that."
"Čurda was hiding on the stage first. There was a stage and a big hall in the school, and during the summer there was always a sanatorium from Prague or wherever they were from... And there were beds, there were mattresses, and they were always lined up on the stage after the summer. So he was hiding between those mattresses."
Hana Šimonová was born on December 31, 1929 in Veselá near Rovensko pod Troskami into the family of Karel Hlaváček. Her father was a school principal and during the Second World War he joined the domestic resistance. The family lived in a school in Veselá. With them there was also a teacher and a scout Karel Čurda, one of the leaders of the resistance Vladimír Krajina and Božena Vlčková, who was of Jewish origin and also General Vlček’s wife. Karel Hlaváček also helped to provide shelter for paratroopers from the Antimony group. On January 15, 1943, Karel Hlaváček was arrested by the Gestapo, and while the people hiding in the school in Veselá managed to escape, the hiding place of the paratroopers was exposed. Karel Hlaváček then made a deal with the Gestapo. He lead the Nazis to the hidden partisans in Rovensko pod Troskami and in return Rovensko and its surroundings were saved from the same fate as Lidice and Ležáky. The captured paratroopers František Závorka and Lubomír Jasínek took their own lives, and Karel Hlaváček later also attempted suicide. At the end he was imprisoned in the Terezín Small Fortress until the end of the war. Her mother was left alone with their five children, and the family was spared further persecution. After the war, the family moved to Liberec. Her father was also arrested during the communist coup in 1948. All her life Hana Šimonová worked in the construction industry, she enjoyed hiking and remained faithful to the Scout movement. She died on July 12, 2022.
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!
