Anežka Stránská

„There was a whole world meeting of the superiors in Rome. So they invited me several times and they never let me go. So I went to the ministry of culture (to Prague – editor´s note) once and said, you need to give it to me in writing. I need to let them know in Rome, htat you have a reason not to… But they didn’t give me anything, but said, so we´ll let you go, but you´ll be checked when you came back, be warned. I said well you don’t need to worry, I have no intention to do any harm to our republic. And they wanted to shake hands, and I said, I would not do that nor promise anything, I only promise to god. I took sister Augustina too, as she knew languages and when we went there, they checked us, suitcases and all. Well everything was all right. We came back and our suitcases… well those were just small cases, nothing much, just a small... they got lost completely, apparently. We travelled on plane. So we came back to Prague, they let everyone go, but us. I asked what was going on, if they were going to check us or what was on. They said, well you didn’t get your luggage or your stuff. So they called us separately and asked where we were and so on. Some secretary, a man and a woman were there, in civil clothes, but were acting decently. So we flew in on Friday, and nothing happened, and on Tuesday we were supposed to came back for our luggage, that they´d call somewhere. And they called us already on Monday to come to pick our stuff up, immediately. Well it was… sister had many papers, magazines in foreign languages. Well… and then her notes with all languages, she could speak many. So they had no clue what it actually was. And I had a few notes there, Czech and German, or Italian just a few words. That was all, we had nothing else in there, just a few necessities, clothes for personal use… Well when they looked through it, there was nothing… and they claimed they found them in three or four days...“

„They liked us a lot there and it was good there in a hospital. There was good work, but we didn’t go voting. So they cleared us. Why didn’t you vote? We didn’t go, as… First we went, those were the first elections, they said, it was our elections, Czech ones and there will be our people there and they are Czechs, so we voted for them. And then, as they behaved like that, we knew what was going on. They took the mother and sentenced her to ten years, so we didn’t believe them, so we didn’t go again. The hospital director came and begged us, sisters, please go for my family, please go and vote. So we said we´d go but we put there no votes, but normal pieces of paper. Well do as you like, but please go voting. So we marched in there at half past seven in the evening, fifty nuns went voting. And of course we put white and blue papers in our envelopes and they punished us for it. They said we should go to a kind of a senior home and it was a social care institution called Pod Doubravkou. It was a collecting camp of Germans to start with, they were about four hundred. Then they divided them and kept those who were all right. And put our people there, but from a hospital, who could not, or didn’t want to work, or those who could not get healed. Many people were dying there, so they placed us there. We were separated there, just us alone. As we didn’t vote, no priest could come to us, but they did anyway… One was a service man, more or less, he´d come to see us, an educated many, a Dominican, knew many languages and had a brother, a priest, and his sister came there, she had nowhere else to go. So that was good, so we has a small secret mass early in the morning, at five or so.“