František Lesák

“[Q: Where you on the barricades?] No, I wasn’t on the barricades; like I was saying I had these courses here and I was a pharmacist, so I started a sickbay in Prague in Břevnov, on Kutnauer Square. And on the left, I liked that, there was a big family residence, and it had two garages next to each other. I’ll go back a bit. It was a Saturday, and I went off to sort something out in Pankrác. So I went to Pankrác. Already when I was passing through in the tram in the morning, around seven or eight o’clock, and when I was passing through Wenceslaw Square, that’s where it began, there were little flags everywhere, hanging from the windows, but Baťa had a flag going all the way down to the ground, and the biggest and best hotel in Prague at the time, they also had one down to the ground. Well, so I got this infirmary up and running, so I had it equipped pretty quickly, and there were three, four girls there. One was a real nurse and the others were volunteers. So I wrote them what I needed, and I hadn’t even noticed, but the nurse crossed the road and there was a pharmacy right opposite. I was astounded by what all they sent me. They sent me absolutely everything; I did a course for it, some 40 or 60 hours in all, so they sent me hemostats. And just imagine, obstetrical forceps as well. I said I hoped those wouldn’t be necessary, but no matter.”

“I couldn’t understand one thing. That Czechoslovak citizens, though of German nationality... the Beneš Decrees were not published in any newspapers, I don’t know the details either, but I reckon the anti-Fascists should have probably stayed here. Except instead of letting them stay here, they simply stuck them into pig wagons and... And I was looking after – I have documentation to prove it – I was looking after one family, and things got so bad that when they put them in the camp there, there happened to be this small concentration camp there, where they collected them. And because he had three children, I would bring him lunch and dinner because they were rationed just 100 grams of bread a day, it was just dreadful. And I said: ‘Who gave you this?’ when I was at the district national committee. ‘Who gave you this, that they’re supposed to have this much, as if they were in a concentration camp, because they’re not, they’re citizens of our republic. This won’t do.’ So I got into a twist with them... but you can’t reason with the Communists for the life of you – they have their truth and that’s the end to any discussion. So I looked after them there. He searched for me too, some years later, he found me here in Dolánky, I’d built myself a nice house there, so he found me there.”