Marie Königová

* 1931

  • “I had one experience, when I was still a little girl. My parents slept in their bedroom, and I was snuggled up at the foot of the bed. I had a couch there. I was always a light sleeper. When I fell asleep and someone moved, I always woke up. Suddenly, the SS broke in - in the night, of course, as always. They charged into the room, into all the rooms I guess, then they took turns; they were looking for someone in the centre of Prague, and they switched the light on in the antechamber. But Dad jumped in there and switched it off again. Because living quarters had to be darkened, and he was afraid it would be visible. So the SS man could have easily shot him there and then, because it looked like he didn’t want to let him in. I slept like a log. And no one could understand that - in all the ruckus that was going on, Mum was there, the boys were there, and I slept through it all at the foot of the bed. If it was something to worry about or what, but for the first time ever I didn’t wake up. My parents were stared wide-eyed, they darkened the house again, the Germans charged around the place, didn’t find anything, bashed the door closed and went on somewhere else.”

  • “It was on 8 May 1945. [Old Town Square] was full of crowds of people, girls in national dress, radiantly joyful that the war was over. The war was supposed to be over, all the papers had been signed. But they still went on killing and killing, the Germans did, the SS mainly. My brother was there with a friends, in the square, looking for Dad. Suddenly there was a rapid barking of gunfire, I don’t know what weapon it was that the SS man used from up in Týn Tower. The sniper who raked [the square] with shots, the people down there. Everyone fell to the ground, we too, of course. Nothing happened to us, but a few people died or were wounded. And the Ruskies arrived at that very moment, it was like in a theatre play. All grimy, like in the dances. They drove up and turned their cannon to where the shooting had come from, and they shot off the spire of Týn Church, which went unrepaired for a long time after.”

  • “It was awful. Dad wasn’t in prison, but he was in custody because of those motorbikes he had. He didn’t have cars, just the one. And both brothers, Karel Šulc and Augustin Šulc, they investigated them both and they spent several months there, in Pankrác. My brother served with the ‘acers’ [members of the AEC, the forced-labour Auxiliary Engineering Corps - trans.]. So that was another problem. And my Průhonice granddad, my mum’s dad, died around that time too, in 1950. So Dad couldn’t even attend his funeral because he was locked up. He spent eight months in custody. But he had a lawyer, and the lawyer found out that they were expecting to find millions in the company. And Dad always said they asked: ‘Where are those millions?’ He said they were in his company. And they asked: ‘Where?’ The cops rummaged around in drawers and places. But he said: ‘Well, they’re in the shop!’ Because that’s where the motorcycles were, the wheels and machines he had bought, etc.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    ?, 04.11.2015

    (audio)
    délka: 01:29:36
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
  • 2

    Praha 10, byt pamětnice, 03.05.2017

    (audio)
    délka: 02:19:05
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

One should be honest, brave, and strong

Marie Königová - shooting 2017
Marie Königová - shooting 2017
zdroj: Jan Holík

Marie Königová was born on 6 August 1931 in Prague. Her grandfather was the prominent Doctor Balcar from Průhonice, and her father was Augustin Šulc, a well-known Prague businessman who imported English BSA motorbikes from Birmingham. The family was persecuted when the Communists came to power, and Marie‘s father was unjustly interned. Marie was not allowed to study medicine, and so in 1952 she instead enrolled at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University. After graduating from university she worked with Docent Svoboda as a programmer at the Research Institute of Computing Machines and then at the Czech Language Institute. Although she repeatedly refused to join the Communist Party, she achieved excellent results in her field. In 1976 she earned a minor doctorate at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, and in 1989 she completed an internship at the University of Toronto. She has written numerous expert publications. She worked in leading positions in her field until 2003, when she went into retirement. She is married and has three children. Her hobbies include sports, exercising, and skiing. As of 2017, she lives in the company of her ever-growing family in Prague 10.