Eva Hlavinková

"My mother was against the Communists, of course, but nobody talked about politics in front of me. They were afraid to talk because I know that in the fifties, when they told jokes, I was never allowed to be there, lest I tell the jokes elsewhere. So that I wouldn't say that, I don't know, Clement Gottwald was... Yeah, I still remember my mother telling me about Zapotocký, about Tonda. She said: 'Yeah, Zapotocký, we always said, girls, come and see, he's standing leaning on the corner again, playing the accordion and talking. That man never worked, he just organised strikes.'"

"These are the memories of a three-year-old child. And all I know is that the situation in the revolution in the very places where we were, that is, near the Dělnická intersection, was very, very tense. Because as the Germans advanced from above over that bridge. They wanted to - and they almost got there, so they drove all the people out of the cellars, mothers, children - and they drove them in front of their tanks. So there was a lot of fear, and I know there was a lot of shooting, a lot of it was some explosive, because I was sleeping in the bathroom where there were no windows. My mother put a straw in the bathtub. And I don't know where my aunt and mother were, but maybe, I don't know, but I was isolated in that bathroom."