Jiří Janů

"What caught my eye there, when I was going back through the documents afterwards, was Ludwig Noll's school report card. And I have a report card of all these Noll's, that the family tradition is that we are close to the German temperament, but we're failing German. Completely. Now I find out that my grandmother Noll, who taught me German from a young age and learned it so she could get along with her brother and his family in Germany, had failed German. Ludwig Noll failed German. Jiří Janů, unfortunately, failed German at secondary school. Ludvík Noll came to Germany, was totally deployed there during World War II and stayed there. He found a girlfriend there, they had two children. And she didn't want to let him go back, she was afraid to let him go to Czechoslovakia."

"Ludvík Noll, my great-great-grandfather, pulled my great-grandmother out of the internment camp. My great-grandmother Julie was a beautiful woman, really beautiful, I have pictures of her. And of course, it didn't escape the local businessmen attention, like Mr. Palán, who was a coal miner in Nemecký Brod, but also the German officers. So you'll find photos of German soldiers here. Ironically, Ludvík Noll, her brother, was totally deployed in Germany during the Second World War. And Julie was branded a collaborator when the Red Army arrived. She was placed in an internment camp in the Sokol Hall, not far from where she lived, and her father could see her from the window. And her father, my great-great-grandfather, managed to get her and Mr. Palán out of the internment camp within two days and they left the city." [Actually it was great-grandfather and grandmother, not great-great-grandfather and great-grandmother]