Samuel Machek

* 1932

  • “It was a morning theatre show, and it was a terribly silly Soviet play with angry communists fighting for communist ideas. It was atrocious. We, students from two schools sitting there, talked aloud and shouted at the actors. I didn’t; brother and I were careful – we knew it could end up bad. Some boys were reckless and talked aloud. When an actor, agitated, threw his hat down, they said: ‘Hey, you lost your hat, man!’ Then the lights went on, StB cops came in and started checking our IDs. That was it. We were sixteen years old and under investigation. Our class teacher was such a dumb man; I forget his name but he was just such a communist idiot. Eventually, there were 16 of us left in the classroom – 14 kids were expelled.”

  • “We were walking through Mezibranská Street down towards the Museum on 9 May, at about eight or nine in the morning. There are lamp posts to the right of the Museum, there is a street to the left of it, and there was this raised road lane; I don’t know if it’s still there. Soviet tanks were parked there at the time. We saw something happening by the lamp posts, with people gathering, so we walked closer. There was some smoke. We saw some people tied to the posts, so we asked some questions. People said those were SS men. They were burning them to death. We watched it till the end. They got diesel fuel from the Russian soldiers. It smoked. If they lit them using petrol, they would burn quickly. It took some time because Soviet tanks run on diesel, not on petrol. Nazis’ tanks ran on petrol, but Russian ones ran on diesel. So, they burned them to death. We watched till the end; we were curious. When they burned them to crisps, some people took them away. There was a water pool where the park is now, and they threw the remains of the four or five people, alleged SS men, into that pool.”

  • “I remember this clearly. When the Nazis came, we were standing in the street and they were driving up Žitná Street. I remember it clearly; it was a one-way street then and the German columns were moving from Karlovo Square. We were standing on the corner and people cursed, cried, clenched fists and so on. They drove in military KDW trucks and motorcycles with sidecars. Large columns. Brother and I were in the street. I have to admit, the Germans treated us quite politely later on. We were blond and blue-eyed at the time, and they gave us candy a few times – maybe we reminded them of their children. That was when the Germans came to Prague. They were rank-and-file Wehrmacht soldiers – not SS men. They were family men, ordinary soldiers.”

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Praha, 16.01.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 02:01:57
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
  • 2

    Praha, 23.01.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 02:05:18
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th Century TV
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I always made sure to avoid getting involved with the communists

Samuel Machek’s high school graduation photo, 1951
Samuel Machek’s high school graduation photo, 1951
photo: Archiv pamětníka

Samuel Machek was born to Anna and Otakar Macheks in Ústí nad Orlicí on 29 April 1932. From his age four on, the family lived in Prague’s Žitná Street where they owned a bespoke clothing salon. This is where he witnessed the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. During the final year of the war, the Machek family gave shelter to Jan Chobotský, a half-Jewish young man who had fled from the labour camp in Bystřice near Benešov, for several months. Aged 13, Samuel helped build barricades during the Prague uprising. That was also when he witnessed Czechoslovak citizens beating a surrendering Nazi soldier to death with a steel rod. In the morning on 9 May, he saw another group of people burning alleged Schutzstaffel (SS) officers to death near the National Museum. He joined the Junák boy scout organisation after the war. He started studying at a business academy in 1947 and graduated in 1951. During that year, his brother Otakar Machek gave shelter to Rudolf Holata, a collaborator of an American intelligence service. Otakar Machek was sentenced to five years in prison in 1956; he eventually served three and a half years. Samuel Machek served in the military in Plzeň in 1952–1954. From 1954, he worked at the transportation section of Stavby silnic a železnic (Road and Railway Building). He worked as a taxi driver from 1970 on. Samuel Machek was living in Prague in 2023.