Jindřich Fencl

"Dad went to Škoda. It was 6 May and Prague was calling for help. They agreed to drive a Škoda company car to help. Dad came on his bike. He told us not to go anywhere and rode his bike to the road to Prague. They took him on board and went to Prague. There was a barricade somewhere near the Olšany Cemetery. They overturned the car, put road bricks in it and waited to see what happens. Dad's cousin was there. A moment after he came to them, a saboteur shot him in the back from behind the barricade and killed him. They ran after him and shot him. Dad then took a day off at the barricade and rode his bicycle to his aunt Magdalena who lived in Prague with her son Petr. They packed up blankets and stuff and took it all on the bicycle at night to Podolí where dad's other sister Marie lived. It was quiet there; they knew nothing about the uprising. She stayed there until Prague was liberated."

"Our house had a small cellar. When there was a big air raid in April 1945, my mother and I ran to the cellar. Dad was on a night shift at Škoda. Doubravka and Letná were bombed [on 17 April]. They targeted the freight station but missed completely and there were many dead. Dad came from the night shift, bringing his parents to our house, and said, 'Grab your hoe, I'll grab a big hoe, and we're going to dig people out of the house where Aunt Živná lives.' It was the corner of Spolková and another street. There were already a lot of people digging, so we joined in. We dug her out. Auntie collapsed outside, so we waited for her to recover a little. Daddy blew the plaster out of her hair and shook it out of her clothes. She held a little bag in her hand with her papers and money in it. We took her to our house. And since my mother's cousin lived in Podlesí with his parents, and a time bomb had landed in their garden, they came to our house too. There were 18 people in our 1+1 house, [which had] an attic room and a hay attic."