Elly Jouzová

“My parents stayed, they didn´t emigrate because my father was given tasks to do by the Party. So, before the Nazis came, he became the owner of the advertising company RIK - Advertising and Publicity – he even had business cards and used to bring home small toothpastes and small jars of jam. The company was probably a cover up to get money to pay for illegal work. When Hitler, came, I remember the terrible weather and how unhappy my parents were. My mother was unhappy as my father was away somewhere at the time and when we had visitors, they spoke in such a serious way. I noticed that and they saw I was serious as well and then they asked me what I was thinking about. And I used to reply – about everything. And they thought it was funny. I simply felt the atmosphere and that was really bad at the beginning of the war. My mother told me that when Ribbentrop and Molotov had signed the Non-Agression Pact that they (the Communists) were in a very difficult situation because these two who were supposed to be enemies, Stalin and Hitler, that it was the faith that the Party and Stalin that they were acting well. They saw some tactics in it, which in fact was more of a Hitler´s tactics than Stalin´s.

“My father died in 1941. Well, we learned it, because a death certificate arrived. My sister took me to the room lifted me up to have me standing on the sofa so that she could reach me and told me that their father had died. But I didn´t understand it fully. I knew it was serious but didn´t understand what it meant because until then none of my friends or relatives had died. But I remember that my sister was crying and then she taught me to sing Kde domov můj (the Czech national anthem).“