Helena Sekyrová

* 1932

  • “I didn't know anything when I was little. I was just looking for daddy. I still wanted a daddy. My mother used to tell me: 'He will come. He left.' He was always going somewhere on business. 'He's coming.' It took about a month before she told me that dad was… She never said to me, 'Daddy's locked up,' she just said he lives there somewhere and is coming soon. She never said he was locked up.”

  • “Jirka went to Switzerland. At home, I had 70,000 in the cupboard in the bedside table and I say to Jirko: 'Look, they say there should be currency, we have the money here. What about them?' 'Please, just let it be. Do you know how many times they said there would be a currency and nothing happened? Just forget it.' I said: 'Well, what do you think.' Jirka left and there really was the currency. They told you that the money you have at home, that they will exchange it one in five, that means that for 50 thousand we would get a few crowns. Just a tiny amount.”

  • "That was no fun at all. That was the end of the war on Pankrác. We observed it from the window. I remember one last day, there was a beautiful weather, it was spring. We lived on the third floor, we had an open window, I was sitting up in the window and my head was sticking out of the window. I said, 'Hey, mom, there are so many. Indeed they are, mom. Come and have a look!' Mum looked and indeed there was a line of American cars (plane) one after another. They were throwing silver strips down from that plane down. As they flew, the silver disturbed the waves. 'They are plenty! So many!'"

  • Full recordings
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    Praha, 11.11.2022

    (audio)
    duration: 01:27:58
    media recorded in project The Stories of Our Neigbours
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The Germans came and took Dad’s uniforms

Helena Sekyrová (en)
Helena Sekyrová (en)
photo: Archiv pamětnice

Helena Sekyrová, née Karlová, was born on December 30, 1932 in Bratislava. She spent her childhood in Prague. Her father Jan Karel, a conductor in the international train services of the company Mitropa, was active in the anti-Nazi resistance. He collaborated with the resistance group Tři králové. He ensured the distribution of messages, radio components, weapons and other material to and from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He also participated in the assassination attempt on Heinrich Himmler in Berlin in December 1940. He was arrested in 1941 and executed on June 30, 1942. Helena Sekyrová remembers the Gestapo search that took place after her father’s arrest. For the rest of the war, the family suffered by a lack of finances. In February 1945, she experienced the bombardment of the city by the Allies in Pankrác, Prague. After the war, she studied in Prague at Na Paloučku business school. She then joined the company Czechoslovak State Film and later worked in foreign trade at the company Koospol. In 1951, she married ice hockey representative Jiří Sekyra. In 2022, she lived in Prague.