Jan Málek

„It was essential that one evening we went to a little street, where there was the Edison cinema. I knew it was there and went past it. I just remember just that window shutters were flying and everything was in flames. I felt the wind and everything burning and between the burial grounds Zelená liška and the houses that the Germans built during the Hitler times, above us it just whizzed. It was overshooting up there. We had a white flag and were placed in some cellars and I know that I didn’t eat anything all day just a single cube of sugar. I didn’t even want to eat anything, I refused any soup. When I went down to the toilet a bullet shot into the wall straight above me. And there we were on May 9, 1945.“

„My parents were terribly joyful, when the communists won in 1948. Then we still lived in Krč and there was a group of intelligent people. Actually you could say it was a kind of an intellectual circle and all were fans of communism. Later I found my father´s notebook with remarks, he was totally overwhelmed by Gottwald, how naturally and human he acted. It may have seemed that way, but it is possible that the pre-war republican policy was somehow unalive and rigid. With all due respect to the president Beneš, when you imagine those speeches done with his nasal tone and closed “e” sound, not to sound to Prague-like. People thought of it much official and when you imagine how large influence was the fact we were liberated by the Red Army and we didn’t care much how they acted then. In Prague, they were decent opposite to Brno, where apparently they did terrible stuff. So it had to end up the way it did.“