Pavel Parkán

“My mom had kept quiet on the illegal activities of my dad but I learned about it from my grand pa. I remember that different people would stay overnight at our flat and that my dad would at times simply disappear for periods of time, night or a day. In short, they acted as liaisons, helping people who needed to disappear from the country, providing for shelters and places these people could stay overnight. It was mostly done via the railway. They were instructed to proceed from one train station to another, where they were met by another liaison, who helped them make it to the next station. Most of them would flee via Poland.”

“Yes, we would meet personally and that commissioner even allowed my mom to give him some food. He turned like this to the window. I didn’t talk to him as I was frightened. I had this paper plane they made back then. That German asked me what I had that plane for. I had been instructed by my mom what to tell them so I said: ‘that’s for taking back wounded German soldiers from the battle and take them to a hospital to save them’. He’d roll his eyes at me and I retreated to my mom’s skirt where I hid. I don’t remember much more of that last encounter with my dad. I only know that my mom fed him as he had a broken collarbone. My mom asked him what happened to him and he told her that he had fallen down a set of stairs. I almost wouldn’t recognize him – he was in a bad shape, his hair and beard overgrown and grey. He was missing his glasses, they had probably taken them away from him. He was wearing blue working trousers. He was in a terrible state, it was painful for us to look at him.”

“Then, in 1944, there was a succession of massive air raids and my mom would tell me: ‘I’ll take you to Humpolec, this ain’t good for you’. She also kept being worried about my dad. One day, Czech gendarmes came to our home and told us that our flat is being confiscated. They told my mom to move out. They confiscated everything in our flat – we had to leave everything there. So my mom went to Humpolec. However, subsequently, they summoned her to the Oberlandrat in Kutná Hora, where they told her that she was required to take part in German activity – this meant working the railway repair shop in Kolín. In this workshop, they’d repair everything that had been shot to pieces. This workshop became a de-facto prison for her since she wasn’t even allowed to leave it. She was working as a slave laborer there until 1945.”