"Because everything there was really so primitive, for example, we brought a grand piano with us. We placed it in one large common room, which served as the dining hall. Now it started dripping on the piano, so they put a bucket in there, so then Mum - Dad was away - had to get someone to fix it. She did what she could. Plus she had two kids, stupid ones. We had to take a bath in the wooden tub. It was in the so-called summer kitchen. Nowadays it's like a corner, when you go in there, there are flowers, it's nice. But back then we always put our blankets in there, my mother would wash us, wrap us in towels, and we'd trot across the yard to bed. We were healthy at that time, I guess it was good for us. Since we've been here in advanced civilization, living under the heat, we're starting to get sick."
"When there were air raids, we used to go to the basement to hide. That's just the kind of thing I'd neglect, that I always had to wear three clothes, so I couldn't even put my hands to my body. Well, to what extent that would have protected us, I don't know. It always stopped and then the sirens would go off again. Mom was having a rough time. No doubt."
"But that must have been after May 9, 1945. We walked from Střešovice, my brother was still in a pram then, he was a one-year-old child. As the square in Bořislavka is today, there was a horde of people digging, digging a hole. Someone said they were digging their own grave, they were prisoners, probably, I don't know. In those days they were normal guys, nowadays you'd probably say guys, they were Germans who dug those pits. I would estimate about 50 metres in size, I don't know how deep. And then they shot them and then they dumped them in. Every time I go to Bořislavka now, I always remember this. Now that they were building the metro there, they must have gotten to it somehow."
Helena Smolíková, née Kameníčková, was born on 12 December 1937 in Prague to Emília and Otakar Kameníček. Her father was a professional soldier during the First Republic. He participated in the Prague Uprising. Helena Smolíková witnessed the massacre of German civilians at Bořislavka in Prague in May 1945. After the war, her father was promoted to major, and by 1948 he was working at the Czechoslovak Defence Force Headquarters. After 1948 he was dismissed from the army for political reasons and the family was evicted from their Prague apartment. In January 1951, the Kameníček family moved to their grandfather Florián Kameníček‘s land in the Haná village of Příkazy. In 1958, the country estate No. 54 - the so-called Kameníček‘s land - was declared a cultural monument. Helena Smolíková graduated from the Czech Technical University (ČVUT) in Prague. In 1986, she and her brother sold the land to the State Institute for Monument Preservation and Nature Conservation. In 2023 Helena Smolíková lived in Prague.
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!
