Jana Mikulová

"During the war, before May came, there were planes flying in the factory where we lived. It was, I don't know what - I was a five-year-old girl, not even yet - when they were bombing Vysočany; it was just over the hill from Hrdlořezy. And those were the shots, how they bombed the factories that were there - the ČKD and all that in Vysočany. But that was bombed by the Americans. And it was big, it was roaring, it was big, I remember that. But I also remember German planes flying over that factory of ours that I lived in. They flew very low. I never learned until now as an adult what those planes were. As a kid, I used to call them the planes with the red muzzles. That they had red muzzles, those planes. And they flew so low that we couldn't even stay in the yard and we had to hide."

"They put up a barricade. Because it was already the days of May and the German army - they didn't call them fascists then, they called them Germans - the Germans were marching from the east into the American zone through Prague. And there was a big barricade where they couldn't avoid, so they were looking for and found this shelter in the rock. And I remember that very, very, very much. They came down with rifles, and they drove all the guys that were there, the workers and they... they drove them up. It was such a horror that it really kept me awake for a long time. But nothing happened. They just rushed them up to take apart the barricade. They had to take it apart, the tanks and all the Germans, the whole army came through and the guys came back safe and sound. But I'll tell you anyway, so that was an experience that I still remember today at eighty-five."