"We hid in the cellar, suddenly there was a rumble, they slammed the door. They banged on the lock, and it flew open. They threw a grenade inside the cellar. It was a handle that it was twisted there, so it didn't affect us. But there was fear. So they pulled us out. There was a mother and a sister, and there was also a certain Zuzana, they left them there. And otherwise, if possible, they threw those people out. Dad went first, he disappeared. I thought, he doesn't speak German. I went out on the street and was nowhere to be seen. Hands up, Hände hoch! And it went. They roared and shot under our feet. There was fear. We went upstairs, and as there are fences and walls, posts, so they leaned their backs on it scanning whole street; they saw everything that was moving."
"When the Germans came here, it was March 15, 1939, so there was probably the most people out there. The weather was bad, it was raining, the snow was falling. They arrived with cars, infantry, I do not know where they came from. The castle was occupied, there was Hitler, that day or the next. He was looking out the window, he was also captured in a photo. When people were up on the hill, they threw down bottles to get shattered on the road, on the tires, and alike.”
"We went, my mother always went to kindergarten for me, and we spoke Czech as we walked. There were groups of children who were just looking for an excuse to either slam someone, or when a boy went there and spoke Czech, it was Czech, they threw stones at him, or slapped him, kicked him around and so on. It was a terrible scum, the folks doing such things there. The bigger boys, who were fourteen fifteen or sixteen years old, they were already men. Then they demolished it all there."
Vítězslav Tůma was born on June 9, 1929 in Prušánky in the Moravian Slovácko region, where he spent the first years of his life. At the age of three, he moved with his parents to Karlovy Vary. There, in the mid-1930s, he witnessed German attacks on the Jewish population. The situation at the border gradually escalated. After the Tůmas family was verbally assaulted for speaking Czech, they moved to Prague. The beginning of the occupation caught up with them there on March 15, 1939. During the Heydrichiad period in June 1942, while searching for paratroopers, the Germans conducted a house search at the Tůmas. In the last days of the war in May 1945, Vítězslav experienced battles between the Germans and the Czechs. He himself was captured by German soldiers. He was later released, but was soon captured again. He spent two days in Kunratice primary school under security. He eventually escaped with his father unharmed. Vítězslav Tůma died in March 2021.
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!
