"I came there and I said immediately, 'Well, I have my mother here.' And they said, 'Yeah, what's her name?' I said, 'Marie Kralova.' And they said, there you will never go, girl. Because your mom is in the fourth yard, the typhus, and there she serves with Professor Patočka and Karpíšek.' And with the sisters I would have to find their names here in the magazine… So my mother was there all the time. I was there for about ten days. The professor said to my mother, 'Look, we can't leave her here.' And before we came there, they immediately vaccinated us against typhus. I know they were French doctors and we got an injection between the back shoulder blades. You heard all the possible languages there. So, we were there thinking that we couldn't get anything. I saw my mother there maybe twice, I don't remember that at all. She had some work all the time. I went back home from there, I can't even say how. I completely forgot how I got home so early. Mom was locked up there. They didn't let the sisters out, they were there just for exchange, there were a few of them. Many of her acquaintances died. There were already professional nurses deployed from the Bulovka medical school. She came to them as a volunteer nurse, actually untrained."
"The Russians were already on their way. Well, I couldn't really see it. I ripped off the elderflower, which was blooming everywhere here at the time. All gardens had elderflower. With that bouquet, I walked down the garden, down the meadow to the main road and to the first Russian I saw on those carts. They were simple, always a horse and a small cart in the back, on that there was a Persian rug and they were sitting on it. I don't know where they took these warm carpets, but the soldiers were just sitting there. I gave them the elderflowers and I said, 'You can all come to us up there.' I don't know how I managed to tell them to follow me like that, but they came. So, there was a big round table in that dining room, and in a moment, there were a lot of Russians. And because we were good at the Russian language… My brother still went to the Russian grammar school in Michle in 1937. My dad said that all the languages are important, and since the Russian was the closest here, he would go to the Russian school. In Dejvice there were again English and German, they were divided. Because he always learned from the book Taras Bulba in the evening, I always knew that we were going to read from Taras Bulba. I liked Russian. I have always found it nice, so I knew enough. Our dad taught us that from an early age."
"I was thrilled that my mom… Everyone was gone." I was probably too slow for my mother, because she already left very quickly. My brother, he was still at the Luftschutz, but he also came in the uniform, from Vršovice, although he was then the commander of the barricade there. He came to the apartment, he just spilled some candies here, I know he had it in his bag. Well, you know, when we saw the candy… there were about fifty of them, a pile, so I ate one candy after another. And everyone left. So, I set off alone over the Braník over the hill, in Braník in Mezivrší.” “What day was it?” - "It was the fifth. At the end of Kateřinská Street there was a lady who was coming out of the house. I was there not long ago to have a look around. There are no more stairs and neither is the lady. She gave people cut tricolors. She also gave me a tricolor. Then I felt very well and set off in the direction of Podolí, because there were no more trams running, only trucks, which my mother apparently took with those groups to get to the central Prague. I walked to the Podolí Sokol center. I knew where to go. They already built a barricade there. I was on the barricade for a while. I have no confirmation from there, no one gave it to me. All the people there were excited. They said, 'Take out the bricks.' Men took them out, women carried them. So, I carried it for a while too. Opposite the barricade, just a few feet to the left is the Sokol center, the back part of the building, and there I saw that people are waving. So, I went in there. And they said, 'Come, you can carry it here.' And there was a room downstairs where the infirmary was, and from that infirmary we were supposed to take the things out after the soldiers.
MUDr. Jarmila Veverová Králová was born on the same day and month as the President Masaryk - on March 7, 1930. As the daughter of the legionary Vojtěch Král, she was one of the so-called Masaryk´s children. She was allowed to add Tomášek‘s name after her surname and to attend the president‘s birthday celebrations. Already at the age of three, she started training in Sokol and remained faithful to it for the rest of her life. She practiced at all domestic gatherings and many abroad. After graduating from elementary school, she was fully deployed in a factory in Modřany from 1944. During the May Uprising of 1945, she helped build barricades and immediately after the liberation she went to Terezín, where at that time her mother Marie Králová served as a volunteer sister of the Czechoslovak Red Cross. In February 1948, Jarmila‘s brother Miloš Král took part in a student march to President Beneš to the Castle. He was arrested and expelled from the university. Jarmila was admitted to the Faculty of Medicine a year after the high school graduation, and after her university graduation she received a job in Karlovy Vary. From 1959 she lived and worked as a dentist in Kraslice, helped to build medical care in the border area and after 1989 she took part in the renewal of scouting in Kraslice. Together with her husband MUDr. Josef Vevera they raised two children. After his death, she moved back to Prague. She received a commemorative medal and a diploma from Army General V. Emil Boček for caring for war veterans.
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!
