Milena Pelcnerová

* 1938

  • "When dad was locked up, they were in Pankrác, in Terezín, I don't know, they were traveling. And he wrote in a letter to his mother that they would be in Kladno, I think I remember it well, that it was Kladno, that they went there because when they were young, they had to work, they didn't just leave them locked up, they had to work a lot. That they were going to unload the wagons and that dad would still like to see us if she could come there to see him. And mom, those women used to meet some of the prisoners, I don't know, I know she used to go to Nova Hospoda a lot and I think her name was Mrs. Marková, but I can't say that. That's how they somehow managed to agree on how it would be. So my mother said that I would go to the father, that he would take me first. The women advised her that she must not walk as normal, so that it would be seen that she must look like she lives on Kladno. So she took, tied a scarf on her grandmother, an apron, a bandana, as if she was going shopping, and we went and waited for them to be taken there. Coincidentally, dad went first like this at the end of that line, I don't know how many went, so I saw him right away. My mother used to tell me: 'Just look and you can wave at daddy, but you can't even move.' Well, but it's hard for me, a child, to say that when he sees daddy, I ran to daddy, I grabbed daddy's hand, he took my hand, stroked my head, and said to me: 'You have to go see your mother.' Because he was still walking, he wasn't allowed to stop, but the Gestapo was already there anyway. My mother had already run, she grabbed me, the Gestapo took my mother as well... they took her to the headquarters, they interrogated her there, they let me scream at the door, I was afraid there crying. Well, they let mom go and we went home."

  • "In November 1944, my father was sentenced to death, although they were not executed until February 19, 1945. When the notification came in February and a package of his linen, clothes, what was left of him, that he had been executed, my brother and I along with his mother slept in the kitchen. It was cold, there was snow then, the moon was shining and I woke up and my mother was not in bed. So I looked out the window and we had a well opposite the window and my mother was standing by the well. I woke my brother up and we went out to see her. As unhappy as she was, she wanted to jump down into that well. So, we begged her to come home with us. She then apologized to us at home, that we would simply forgive her, that she wanted to do it, that she simply didn't know how to proceed. Because she actually had four children – and no means.”

  • "I was not yet five years old when my father was arrested. And I can recall that. When the Gestapo came for him, I was outside. And when they arrived, the paths diverged in Háje by the school. First they drove down the lower road, there they asked where Pouchanič lived, but someone there told him that it was on the upper road, so they returned. And back then, a car was a rarity to see. So, dad, he was cutting stumps in the yard, he heard a car, so he went to the gate. They stopped him there and said: 'Where does Pouchanič live?' And he said: 'It's me.' I do not remember if he could come back home to pick something up to wear or they just put him in the car, but I was there standing on the road. When he got into that car, I thought he was just going on a trip or I don't know. When he sat down, he turned and waved to me and I waved back to him. And then when he wrote home, he wrote that he was slapped first in that car for waving."

  • Full recordings
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    Smolotely, 19.04.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:07:08
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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I was not yet five years old when the Gestapo came for my father

Milena Pelcnerová (en)
Milena Pelcnerová (en)
photo: Post Bellum

Milena Pelcnerová, née Pouchaničová, was born on December 23, 1938 in Háje u Příbrami as the youngest of four children. Her father Ivan Pouchanič was active in the resistance during the war. In November 1943, the Gestapo closed him down and imprisoned him in Pankrác and Terezín. In November 1944, the father was sentenced to death for resistance activities, he was executed together with other Příbram resistance fighters on February 19, 1945 in Brandenburg. The family only received a short notice and a pack of clothes. The witness remembers the moments of the end of the war in nearby Slivica. In 1944, she entered the general school in Háje and, after graduating from the town school in Příbram, she successfully passed the exams at the Pedagogical Institute in Brandýs nad Labem. However, due to her mother’s poor health, there was no one to pay for her boarding school. Therefore she trained as a textile salesperson and ended up enjoying the job. She got married at the age of seventeen, and raised three children together with her husband. She lived with her family in Háje and briefly worked as a shop assistant in Příbram. After that, she and her husband moved to nearby Smolotel, where Milena took a job as a mail carrier after maternity leave. As soon as the children grew up, she worked in various positions at JZD Smolotely until her retirement. She remembers the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, when she had a son in hospital in Prague. She learned about the Velvet Revolution from television. In 2022, Milena Pelcnerová lived in Smolotely.