"He recalled a lot like this about how they were... And he told us at the time that they were in this trap. He said, 'The Germans were above us, and we just had this footpath. And we went and we had to go along that footpath.' And my mother told me that they suffered from a lot of illnesses during the war in the camp."
"Mrs Pastyříková, I will never forget her. She was a terribly bad woman. And Mrs. Batryn was at the housing distribution office. They kept saying they didn't have apartments. I said, 'Look, I'm not going to argue with you.' I sat down and wrote directly to Husák at the presidential office. And I wrote him everything straightforwardly. About my parents, who my dad was, that he was invited to the Castle and got a medal. Ludvík Svoboda was still alive then. And I whad been there with him as a little girl. Within a week they invited me to the committee and they said, 'Mrs. Gunárova, you didn't have to do that.' I said, 'Look, you can't do it any other way. I can't give you envelopes. I don't have [money]. And suddenly you have an apartment.'"
"I was with him in Prague, when we lived in Slovakia. He got an invitation from the president's office and he took me with him. I came there with him. There it was everything. Those who had invited him, who were in the army, who were still alive, were standing there. They got decorated. And I'll tell you the truth, Ludvík Svoboda, when he saw my dad, he recognized him right away. He came and said, 'Servus, my Janko.' It was very nice. And that he would accomodate us in a hotel. But my dad said, 'No, I have a sister here. I'm going to my sister's to sleep with my daughter.' But otherwise they gave me this big box of chocolates. It was a very nice experience."
Drahomíra Gunárová was born on 21 March 1953 in Louny. Her parents were Anna Surmajová and Jan Surmaj. Her father fought alongside Ludvík Svoboda in the Dukla Pass, where he was wounded. In the 1960s he received a medal for his participation in the fighting in World War II. The witness was with him when he received the decoration at Prague Castle. Drahomíra Gunárová grew up with four brothers. She and her parents often moved from Slovakia to the Czech Republic for work, so she only finished primary school and then started working. She worked as a cook, married in 1974 and had five children with her husband. Since 2010 she lived briefly in England with her son and daughter. In 2025 she was living in Jirkov.
