I was at home when they came to arrest my mom
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Libuše Heřmanská was born on 27 March 1930 to Libuše Šircová and Vladimír Širc in Mělník. Her father used to take Libuše to the hospital to see what his work was all about, because she aspired to become a doctor. Libuše’s uncle, Josef Širc, was involved in the resistance and was imprisoned in Innsbruck until the end of the war. On May 9, 1945, during the celebrations of the end of the World War II, their family house in Mělník, Benešova Street, was hit by Soviet air force; fortunately, no one in the family died. However, the communist coup in 1948 brought many difficulties to the family, mother Libuše was imprisoned for a year in Pankrác Prison in Prague for unproven transportation of army general Alois Liška across the border. Because of the cadre’s report, which was also contributed to by a classmate taking revenge for an amorous rejection, Libuše could not study at university. In 1950 she moved to Prague, where she trained as an X-ray technician. In the summer of 1957 she married Miroslav Heřmanský, a scientist and pianist, with whom she has two daughters. The couple did not take the opportunity to emigrate to England, where scientific colleagues would have found Miroslav Heřmanský a job. On the day of the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, the witness spent the day in a hospital where she treated wounded civilians. Libuše Heřmanská worked at the hospital until her retirement and lived in Vinohrady in Prague in 2022.
