Marie Mezerová

* 1932

  • "And so in the Little Fortress he was later in cell 44, which was the cell of death. Everyone, who had been in that cell, it was for about 400 people, were meant for death. And how. With my father it ended up so, that the assistant of the fortress's commander took him out, it was Jöckel and this was Rojko, took our father out and beat him to death in the courtyard of the fourth yard. And we all then experienced it once. They were making that memorial event for our father, and so it was exactly, at the place where it had happened. It was absolutely agonizing, I couldn't speak of it for years to come. And of course, back then there was a mass grave, about 620 people were in that mass grave, and so father had ended up there, and after the war mother tried during those exhumations to find out his identity, which was impossible. She searched between all those wounded. And well it seems that apparently they had beaten my father in the legs so much that they were rotting down to the bone, in that Terezín. And well that identity could not be found out, because that mass grave happened to be in a place, where there was very high humidity. They were always supposed to have a sign with their name by their leg, but that was completely illegible. And by the injuries he had found out that, from those six hundred people, father had a broken spine from how they beat him, and so there were three prisoners with a broken spine. And so then mother decided, still with the family, that we'll take a number in that national graveyard, back then there were 600 dead there, when we were there with mom, it was horrible, and so we'll just symbolically take the number of a grave where we'll go as if it was to his grave."

  • "In our house there was a house caretaker, and he was a confidant of the Gestapo. Because I know, that after the war, about a week after it ended, some man came by, still with that Revolutionary Guard, with that soldier, or whatever he was back then, and they took our house caretaker away, because he was snitching on people, and always had the stamp of "Administrator of house Čáslavská 6" on the tip-off. And this person, that came for him with that Revolutionary Guard, was placed on a minefield. And he returned, saved himself, and found in some archive of that Pečkárna specifically this house caretaker, that he had been giving tip-offs there, and that apparently that boy had snitched on my brother, that he was giving out those fliers. They were weird people, as people say. We weren't scared of him, that caretaker, while all the other residents in that house were terribly scared of him. And so when that caretaker opened up at five thirty in the morning to three Gestapo officers, that they were going after my father, then immediately the people in that house started to steer clear of our family. Only one family tried to help my mother, but the others were scared. They were scared, I understand it."

  • "Ever since I could first remember my mom and dad, I had a hidden handkerchief. It was the first time, that we were taking the laundry from Pankrác, that it was to be washed. It was for the last time, then the Germans cancelled it, it was always once every fourteen days. And so in that dirty laundry there was a handkerchief, which we could see had been washed, somewhere in the corner there was blood, and when mom opened it, there was written in the corner B U H - God. Out father was a Catholic and believed, but my mother, a reader of detective novels, says: 'B U H, that is: They will look for Újezdec (Budou Újezdec Hledati), father definitely has something there, because why else give this message?' And so she actually went there. We rode on the train together then, it was interesting, there were these American pilots that attacked locomotives. And well father did actually have weapons in the garden there. In the garden there was, suddenly, without explanation, a rabbitry built, over the whole summer holidays, even though otherwise the rabbitries were completely somewhere else. And well father said: 'Here you have also something to do. You will take care of the rabbits, so that you can feel some happiness.' And so there were about four rabbits there. 'And so you'll go get grass, you'll clean it, feed it, and so on.' And behind that rabbitry he actually had hidden the weapons. Then later mother found out, and well, it didn't benefit her health much. She also had heavy diabetes. And that's how she explained this message. I sometimes explain it to myself that maybe he was really trying to have God help him."

  • Full recordings
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    Praha, 21.01.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 56:17
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Praha, 28.01.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:01:04
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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To even a single person, who died for this country, we must show appreciation

Marie Mezerová as a student
Marie Mezerová as a student
photo: Archiv pamětníka

Marie Mezerová was born on the 16th of July 1932 in Prague to the married couple of Marie and Antonín Weiss. Her father was bank bureaucrat, member of Sokol, a reserve officer of the Czechoslovak army and a managing director of the Czechoslovak Union of Firefighters and the International Association of Fire and Rescue Services based in Paris. During the Protectorate years he used his contacts and work travel to build firefighter resistance organizations and arm them. In October 1944 Antonín Weiss was arrested, held prisoner in Pankrác and after cruel interrogations moved to “the cell of death” in the Theresienstadt Ghetto and on the 18th of April 1945 tortured to death. For his service he was awarded the Czechoslovak war cross in memoriam in the year 1946. The witness stayed true to her father’s values even into the coming communist totalitarianism. After failing to be admitted to university she worked in the association of former political prisoners (which was renamed to the Union of Antifascist Warriors in 1951), where she met her future husband Ladislav Mezera. His family also had a past of resistance activity. The witness found professional fulfilment in a scientific library, where she managed to fight for the international exchange of publications. Today she lives in the apartment in Prague in which she had spent her childhood (2022).