Your earnestness and your strength—what depths they plumb!
—KAFKA, BRIEFE AN MILENA
On the night of March 14, 1939, Milena, like thousands of her compatriots, was unable to sleep. With despair in her heart she stood at her window, looking down on the familiar scene. The streetlamps cast the same shadows as on other nights, and the star-shaped square across the way was as deserted as usual. “… The only difference was that beginning at three o’clock more and more lights went on; next door, across the street, downstairs, upstairs, all along the street … meaning that everyone knew. … At four o’clock, the Czech radio begins to broadcast; every five minutes, the same brief announcements: ‘Attention! Attention! The German army has crossed the border and is moving on Prague. Keep calm. Go to your work! Send your children to school! …’ Over the rooftops a dreary dawn. A pale moon behind the clouds, faces drawn with sleeplessness, a pot of hot coffee, radio announcements at regular intervals. That is how great events creep up on us, quietly, unexpectedly. But once the thing has happened, we know we’ve been expecting it all along….”
Milena shakes off her stupor, goes to the phone, and calls her Jewish friends. Always the same question: “Have you heard?” And always the same answer: “Yes.” She does her best to cheer them up. “Count on me. I won’t let you down,” “Milena seemed to have been made to deal with catastrophes,” wrote Willy Haas, one of those she called up that night. “The more distraught her friends were, the more calm, the more steadfast, the greater she was.”
At daybreak Milena went out to see what was going on. “… At half-past seven swarms of children were on their way to school as usual. Workers were on their way to their jobs as usual. The streetcars were packed as usual. Only the people were different. They stood there in silence. I have never heard so many people being so profoundly silent. No crowds formed. In the offices no one looked up from his desk. … At 9:35 the vanguard of Hitler’s army reached the city center, German army trucks rumbled down Narodni Tfida, the main street of Old Prague. As usual, the sidewalks were full of people, but no one turned to look. … I can’t explain how it came about that thousands of people suddenly behaved in exactly the same way, that so many hearts, quite unknown to one another, beat in the same rhythm…. The German army was welcomed only by the German population of Prague…”*
A young German, Count Joachim von Zedtwitz, who had just completed his medical studies in Prague, has given an account of his reaction to the events of March 15. That morning, having slept through the entry of the German troops and suspecting nothing, he went out to buy rolls. The first thing that caught his eye was an army motorcycle with sidecar; a soldier in a foreign uniform was sitting in it. In a flash von Zedtwitz realized what had happened. His first impulse was to seize the man by the throat and choke him. But he restrained himself, for when he looked around he saw that the whole street was clogged with trucks carrying German soldiers, thousands of them, column after column…. Prague, the bastion of freedom, had fallen.
Tears were streaming down the faces of the people around him: Without a moment’s hesitation he ran to the home of his Jewish friend Neumann, whose mother opened the door anxiously. Her son, she said, was not at home. What did Zedtwitz want of him? “How can you ask? You must all leave here at once.” The old woman shook her head. “No, young man, we will never leave. The river is just behind the house. We know what to do.”
To Zedtwitz such an attitude was incomprehensible. How could anyone think of suicide when it was time to band together, to fight, and to save those who were in danger? He ran from one Jewish family to another. At last he found his friend Neumann. “If you’re ready to help,” Neumann said, “I’ll send you someone tomorrow. He will identify himself with a gray visiting card.” Two days later Zedtwitz’s doorbell rang. A tall, gangling Englishman handed him a scrap of gray wrapping paper with the name “Harold” scribbled on it. That was the beginning. A small group formed, including Harold Stovin, Kenneth Ogier, Bill Henson, and Mary Johnston, who until the day before had taught English at the British Institute in Prague. They were all friends of Neumann’s. In Zedtwitz’s opinion they were sensitive souls, unsuited to resistance work, but the arrival of the Germans and a sense of responsibility for the lives of endangered people transformed them into heroes.
Zedtwitz owned a car. Just what they needed to carry out their plan of smuggling prominent Jews across the Polish border. But while they were making arrangements they needed a hiding place for the fugitives, since the Gestapo was already offering high rewards to anyone providing information leading to the arrest of prominent Jews. Someone thought of Milena, who immediately declared her willingness to hide the fugitives in her apartment and participate in the group’s work.
In an article of March 22, Milena wrote: “The German soldiers behaved decently. It is amazing what a change takes place when a monolithic formation breaks down the individuals, when one human individual stands face-to-face with another.” She herself must have witnessed the following incident: “On Väclavske Nämesti a Czech girl saw a group of German soldiers approaching. Because this was the second day of the occupation and everybody’s nerves were on edge, and because on the second day we were able to think again and realize what had happened, she burst into tears. Then a strange thing happened. A German soldier, a common little footslogger, came up to her and said, ‘Ach, Fräulein, it’s not our fault….’ He comforted her as one comforts a child. He looked like a typical German with a freckled face and reddish hair. He was wearing a German uniform but was otherwise no different from one of our Czech boys, a plain man serving his country. Two human beings stood face-to-face and ‘were not to blame.’ Those terribly commonplace words are the key to the whole situation.
“The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is on the Staromestske Nämesti. On March 15 it was buried under a mass of snowdrops…. That strange force, which in some mysterious way guides our steps, had led swarms of people to this place, and they had laid armfuls of flowers on that little grave recalling great memories. The people round about were all in tears. Men, women and children. And once again their behavior was typically Czech: no loud sobs, no sign of fear, no violent outbursts. Only grief. Their grief had to find some outlet….
“I caught sight of a German soldier at the back of the crowd. He raised his hand to his cap. He realized that these people were in tears because he was in Prague….
“I recall our beautiful illusions and wonder if Germans and Czechs, Frenchmen and Russians will ever be able to live together in peace, without harming, without hating, without wronging one another. Will governments ever be able to settle matters peaceably as individuals do? Will peoples ever cease to be separated from one another by frontiers?
“What a fine thing that would be!”*
In this article, published by Přítomnost when the Gestapo had already made itself at home in Prague, Milena, ordinarily so unsentimental, was moved to pathos.
In the course of the months that followed the German invasion of her country, this brave journalist, who fought with her pen, became an active fighter against tyranny. On her advice, the group extended their list of people to be rescued to Czech officers and aviators. Milena’s ingenuity, her gift for devising camouflage and finding hiding places, proved exceedingly useful to the rescue team, as did her look of innocence, her spontaneous charm, and her staunch impassivity under questioning by the police. To those very qualities which had formerly been criticized as immoral, numerous people now owed their salvation. Joachim von Zedtwitz, who now saw Milena almost every day, was impressed by her political sagacity. “At that time,” he says, “Milena looked like Churchill. She had the same bulging forehead, the same prodigious intelligence in her eyes, the same asymmetrical mouth drawn in at the corners, the same look of determination. Her resemblance to Churchill is no accident; their looks reflected the same political genius.” And Zedtwitz went so far as to say that her handwriting also showed her political gift, that with its heavy, almost parallel downstrokes and elaborate, elegant flourishes, it bore the mark of a passionate, many-sided nature, disciplined by an extreme effort of the will. About her handwriting Max Brod wrote, “It shows, I believe, a certain resemblance to Thomas Mann’s, and that is most unusual, for Thomas Mann’s handwriting, especially in his early years, seems unique….”*
Any journey to the Polish border at that time was exceedingly dangerous. One day young Zedtwitz’s passengers were Rudolf Keller, editor in chief of the Prager Tagblatt, and Holosch of the Prager Mittag. They had driven only a short way eastward when the first incident occurred. Zedtwitz knew the Germans had set up checkpoints all around Prague, and yet, taking a corner at high speed, he drove straight into one. He barely had time to instruct his passengers: “Don’t open your mouths. I’ll do the talking.” Thereupon, pretending that this was a routine check by traffic police, he jumped out, opened the hood, intent on distracting the German soldier, and pointed at the serial number of his engine. “When I saw the German soldier’s face,” Zedtwitz reports, “I felt sick. He had the look of a hardened criminal. But luckily he was slow on the uptake and my behavior threw him off. All he could think of saying, or rather snarling, was, ‘Are you carrying a Browning?’ “ Zedtwitz snapped back in his best Prussian manner that he had no need of one. No further questions were asked.
They drove on. To avoid further checkpoints, they took back roads. All went well for a while. Then in Moravia it began to snow, and before long they got stuck in a snowdrift. At this point Holosch gave up; he somehow made his way to the nearest railroad station and returned to Prague. Rudolf Keller and Zedtwitz went on. They had an appointment to meet a guide in a certain village, but because of their delay he had already gone when they got there. Night was falling. Zedtwitz drove to a place where he hoped to find another guide. Leaving the car on the road, he crept up to the house and knocked. A frightened old woman opened. “Take care,” she whispered. “The man you are looking for has been arrested for smuggling people across the border.” Zedtwitz hurried away. In the beam of his headlights he saw Keller standing in the road with a policeman. Mastering his fear, he joined them with a friendly “Good evening.” The policeman turned to him and growled, “Papers!” To gain time, Zedtwitz took out an impressive sheaf of identification papers. But the law wasn’t satisfied. “What about his papers?” “Don’t worry,” said Zedtwitz, “he’ll find something.” Slowly and deliberately Keller rummaged through his pockets. What he finally came up with was an Austrian certificate of citizenship issued in 1886. Keller was indeed sixty-eight years old. While the policeman was studying this document, Zedtwitz, fearing the worst, started improvising. “Good God, Uncle Rudi, how can you run around without papers at a time like this?” And then, to the policeman, in a confidential tone, “He’ll never change. He still thinks the Emperor Francis Joseph is on the throne.” Rudolf Keller caught on at once and played the role of a doddering old man to perfection. The policeman began to laugh. “All right. AH right. But where are you going at this time of night?” Zedtwitz made up a long story about having to visit some dairy farms and losing their way. After a few jokes about senior citizens who couldn’t keep up with the times, the policeman let them go.
There was nothing for it but to go back to Moravska Ostrava. They drove awhile in silence, then Keller asked Zedtwitz to stop, and said calmly, “Let me off here. I’ll just lie down in the ditch and take poison. Why in God’s name should a young man risk his life for an old man like me?” Zedtwitz replied, “There’s plenty of time for taking poison. Let’s have a good dinner first. Then we’ll think it over.” They came to an inn and ate a good dinner. Keller’s spirits revived. Next day they found a new guide, who led Keller to safety in Poland.
On the day after the occupation the editors of PHtomnost met in a cafe to decide what was to be done. The situation seemed hopeless and all were deep in gloom. Milena was a little late. When she finally appeared, all looked up hopefully and one of the editors cried out, “Thank God, a man at last!” Much later Ferdinand Peroutka, the editor in chief, whom the Gestapo would arrest a few days later, was to remember a prophetic remark Milena had made while the Germans were marching in. “This is nothing,” she had said, “just wait till the Russians get here.”
When Peroutka was arrested, Milena took over the editorship and kept it when Peroutka was released two weeks later. He remained in the background, contenting himself with inspiring the most important articles and doing all he could to keep the journal from being suppressed for as long as possible. This of course called for the utmost caution. Some readers resented this “opportunism,” and I can imagine that in the last months of Milena’s journalistic activity a good deal of what she had to do must have gone against her grain. In one article she apologized, as it were, to the readers. Czech journalism, she wrote, was like a tree that had lost all its leaves except for two or three at the top. And dull-witted people, who didn’t know how to read, were complaining that the tree had ceased to sound in the wind.
Milena did her best to smuggle hints and warnings into her articles. Little by little, they came to feature Czech nationalism. In part, this must have been dust in the eyes of the German censors, but in part no doubt it reflected Milena’s conviction. She had always been cosmopolitan, but she was also a realist. She realized that in a country occupied by a foreign totalitarian dictatorship the only way of preserving the people’s will to resist is to reinforce its national consciousness.
And there is yet another explanation for the milder tone of Milena’s articles at the time. By concealing her real opinions from the Gestapo, it enabled her to carry on her relief work in relative safety.
But she did not content herself with legal journalism. She helped to found an underground organ titled Vboj! (On with the Struggle!) and contributed to other illegal organs. One day she ran into her old friend Milos Vanek in the street. They sat down on a bench; after a short exchange, Van£k suggested that they put out an underground paper together. Milena burst out laughing. “Why not?” she said. “That will be the fourth.”
A few days after Hitler’s entry into Prague, one Herr von Wol-mar was appointed to oversee the work of Mr. Smorane, head of the government press office. Smorane, an Agrarian, was a protege of former Prime Minister Hodza; his opinions were far to the right, and he was no friend of Milena’s. But he was a brave and upright man, and he succeeded for a time in playing a double game. In the end, he was unmasked by the Gestapo and executed.
A special sort of love-hate relationship seems to have developed between Milena and Herr von Wolmar. He summoned her to his office at least once a week and they had long arguments which they both seem to have enjoyed. She described von Wolmar as an intelligent, cultivated man with perfect manners. He always treated her courteously, never kept her waiting, and made her feel that he thought highly of her.
Only once did Herr von Wolmar lose his temper and forget his good manners. The occasion was an article of Milena’s in Přítomnost, entitled (in German) “Soldaten wohnen auf den Kanonen.”* In it she wrote that German soldiers’ songs were much better, specifically, more “soldierly” than their Czech counterparts; this was because the Germans were a more warlike, more soldierly people than the Czechs, in whose songs girts and lilies of the valley figured more prominently than deeds of heroism.
Before writing this article, she had cast about for a typical German soldiers’ song. Her friend Fredy Mayer, a German, suggested Bertolt Brecht’s comically grisly song celebrating soldiers who live on top of their guns and make steak tartare of every foreign race they come across. Of course Fredy and Milena were well aware that this song came from The Threepenny Opera and was far from being a German soldiers’ song. But they felt that this was something that a Czech woman journalist would not necessarily be expected to know. Milena jumped at the idea, and that was how the Communist Bert Brecht came to be published in Pritomnost under the Nazi occupation. But the matter did not end there.
All Czech-language articles were censored by Sudeten German Nazis, who had some knowledge of Czech but whose limited intelligence was unequal to the hidden allusions and subtle irony of Milena’s articles. It never occurred to them that Czech readers might not take Milena’s fulsome praise of German soldiers at its face value. Such passages as the following flattered their national pride: “Formerly, when a whole regiment of Czech soldiers marched past under our windows, the merry clip-clop of their steps sounded peacefully through the streets; today, when a single German soldier walks through a cafe, his firm tread makes the glasses ring and plaster fall from the ceiling….” And she goes on: “The Germans are as well able to command as to obey. Their soldiers tremble in fear of their superiors and carry out orders without question. How very different, how utterly unsoldierly, were the Czech officers, who far from shouting at their subordinates, spoke kindly to them, until the soldiers realized that what was being asked of them made sense….” This of course was pure irony. But the ignorant Nazi censors swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
Not so Herr von Wolmar when Milena’s article was brought to him in translation. He was intelligent enough to see through her little game. He sent for her and received her unsmilingly. “Tell me,” he said, “did you ever hear German soldiers sing that song? Are you, or are you not, aware that it was written by the Communist Bertolt Brecht?” Milena played innocent. No, she didn’t know. She had heard the song somewhere, she couldn’t remember when or where. But she had never doubted for a moment that it was a German soldiers’ song, because it sounded so very soldierly and so very German. By the time she concluded with a friendly smile, Herr von Wolmar’s temper was at boiling point. He threw the pencil he had been toying with in her face and shouted, “Enough! There are limits to everything. Do you think I was born yesterday?”
That was a happy day for Milena. She was proud of having made this disciplined, cultivated German lose his self-control.
In every aspect of her life, in love, in friendship, her political activity, and her writing, Milena was a fanatic. Time and again, despite the increasing precariousness of her situation, this fanaticism drove her to state her opinions loudly and clearly. “In a time of political upheaval, with new political values in the making, Czech journalists have been the only mediators between events and people, the sole purveyors of the living word. Every one of us is conscious of this mission, every one of us realizes that to be a Czech journalist is today an honor.” These remarks were addressed to her colleagues in June 1939. “In the present situation,” she goes on, “we journalists are bound to share the same feelings. Anyone who feels differently ceased long ago to be worthy of his calling…. The rest of us have committed ourselves to the imperative mission of guiding the nation to new life, new hope and new tasks. …”
She attacks the German press and the letters in which German readers express the suspicion that the love for the Czech people that figures so prominently in her articles is simply an incitement to hate the Germans. “This suspicion is directed at all of us. Czech journalists, regardless of what paper we write for …
neither overtly nor between the lines has any of us ever suggested that one should proceed by stealth. … If we have to live side by side with the Germans, we must not allow our sense of national honor to be crushed. In cultural level, in manual skills, in industriousness, and in personal integrity, we are in no way inferior to the Germans. We are their equals.
“Never must we let inertia, discouragement or exhaustion impair this sense of our equality, which they deny. We have always said this and we shall continue to do so. None of us has whispered … none of us has so much as hinted that we should spy on the Germans, seek to ambush them. Undisciplined behavior, even of a purely personal nature, can destroy our whole nation. Each one of us proclaims loudly and clearly what is needed: stubborn endurance, courage and bravery; fear nothing, there is nothing to be afraid of; tell the truth.
“We are adults, cultivated Europeans; and every one of us is a thinking human being…. Czech journalists are neither bandits nor cowards….”*
More and more, Milena’s apartment became a secret meeting place and refuge. Sometimes as many as ten people were there at one time. The Englishmen would sit whispering in one corner; on the terrace a Russian Jewish woman would be playing with her child and Zedtwhz would be trying in vain to converse with her; Frau Menne, whose husband, the former editor of a newspaper in Essen, had already been smuggled across the border, was helping in the kitchen, and Walter Tschuppik, another German, who had been editor of the Munchener Neueste Nachrichten until 1933, was waiting patiently for his turn; meanwhile, Rudolf Steiner, who after successfully reaching Poland was chased back into Czechoslovakian territory by a drunken Polish border guard, was running frantically from room to room, making pointless and dangerous phone caiis. One day he went completely to pieces and announced that if he were not spirited out of the country at once he would go to the Gestapo and denounce them all.
Zedtwitz writes: “Milena, who always wore a blue dress and welcomed every new arrival with a sweeping gesture of hospitality, comforted them all. She did it just by being there. In her presence people felt and somehow behaved better.”
Nevertheless Milena made countless mistakes. Her apartment was open to all comers; she talked too freely, neglected the most elementary precautions, and thought it necessary to make a show of her hostility to the fascist conquerors. She had no qualms about appearing on the street with her Jewish friends, and when it was reported that the National Socialists were forcing Polish Jews to wear a yellow star, she sewed a Star of David on her clothes and displayed it ostentatiously. She wanted to set an example and hoped her compatriots would follow suit.
Though she advised many friends and even her lover to emigrate, she herself categorically refused to leave the country and ignored all warnings. One of her friends told her what to expect if she was arrested, “Beatings,” he said, “are hard enough to bear. But imagine what it would be like in a concentration camp if they pulled your hair out day after day. This’s worse than being shot….” Milena felt that she could not possibly run out on the people she had called upon to resist. It seems likely that she sacrificed herself deliberately, but she could not have suspected that the end would come so soon.
The Germans had not been in Prague for long when Milena’s father called her on the phone. “Why,” he asked her sternly, “haven’t you been arrested yet? No self-respecting person should be out of jail at a time like this.” What Milena said in answer is not known to us. But be that as it may, Jan Jesensky did not have long to wait.
The Gestapo had its eye on her. Soon she was summoned to her first interrogation. Asked whether she associated with many Jews, she replied, “Of course I do. Have you any objection?” Then: Where is your lover? No answer. He had left the country a long time ago. Next question: “Is the father of your child a Jew?” Reply: “I regret to say he is not,” At this the interrogator lost his temper and bellowed, “That will do. We’re not used to such answers here.” “And I’m not used to such questions,” Milena replied.
In June 1939, Milena was forbidden to publish, but she went on editing Přítomnost until August, when it was suppressed by the Gestapo. On September 1, two days before the declaration of the Second World War, Ferdinand Peroutka was arrested. Milena had gone to see him the previous evening. He was taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Some days later the collaborator Moravec, now minister of culture, had Peroutka brought back to Prague and moved to the fashionable Hotel Esplanade. After trying in vain to bribe him, Moravec thought he could force Peroutka to put out a National Socialist Přítomnost. When that too failed, Peroutka was handcuffed and taken back to Buchenwald, where he remained until the end of the war.
From then on, Milena felt the danger coming closer. Her main worry was what would become of little Honza if she were taken away. She was sorry to have drawn the child into resistance work. In the last few months Honza, an unusually intelligent child, had become a skillful conspirator, entrusted among other things with distributing illegal newspapers. Milena arranged with Fredy Mayer and his wife, whose daughter had just been sent to England with a group of children, that in case she was arrested the child would move in with them, but that if the Mayers, who were themselves in great danger, could not take her, they should hand her over to Milena’s father.
One morning, about four weeks after Peroutka’s arrest, Milena sent Honza to the printer’s for copies of the illegal paper. When she got there, a Gestapo raid was in progress. Honza tried to clear herself by saying that she had just dropped in to use the telephone. When asked where she lived, she refused to answer. The Gestapo agents let her go and followed her to her mother’s place. While they were searching the apartment, the little girl stood in one particular place and did not stir from the spot even when the Gestapo man hit her for not answering his questions. Pretending to be slightly feebleminded, she persisted in standing on a part of the floor under which some important documents were hidden. When the Gestapo men had finished searching the premises, they arrested Milena.
Honza lost no time in phoning the Mayers. They came for her at once, but she agreed to go with them only on condition that she could bring her best friend, a big black tomcat. He proved to be a difficult friend. He was not quite housebroken, and worse, he had the hair-raising habit of climbing out the window of the Mayers’ top-floor apartment and strolling about on the roof. Despite the giddy height, Honza would climb out after him and plead with him to come back in. On one occasion, however, the troublesome animal won the respect of the whole family. The Gestapo had come to arrest Fredy. Three agents were rummaging in the cupboards and bookshelves when suddenly the cat jumped out of a dark corner, landed on the shoulder of one of them, and clawed him through his uniform. The men were so terrified that they broke off their search and led Fredy away without further ado.
Partly because of her precocious intelligence, Honza was a difficult child. Hardly a day passed without her causing some crisis. Often she came home very late and offered the most implausible explanations, most of them originating in her conspiratorial imagination: Some men had followed her, and she had escaped over long and devious ways and hidden in some house, where she had had to wait till nightfall before daring to come out. She managed to keep her foster parents in a constant state of alarm.
One morning the phone rang. “Gestapo speaking. Is little Honza there?” Frau Mayer, who was scared, stammered that she didn’t know where the child was. “Too bad,” was the answer, “because if you could get hold of her, she could go and see her mother at the Petschek Palace this morning….”Needless to say, little Honza was found very quickly. Before setting out, she collected a big bundle of linen, in which she was determined to pack some secret documents for her mother. Despite her frantic resistance, the Mayers managed at the last minute to take the documents away from her.
In the spring of 1940, after Fredy had been twice arrested and twice released, the Mayers were obliged to give up their apartment and leave the country. In accordance with Milena’s wishes, Honza was entrusted to her grandfather. When Professor Jesensky, that out-and-out anti-Semite, came to pick her up, he felt so grateful to Frau Mayer for taking care of the child for so long that he took her in his arms and kissed her.
Like all persons arrested for political reasons, Milena was sent to the Pankrac Prison in Prague, whence she was taken every morning to the Pečkarna for interrogation. This Petschek Palace, as the Germans called it, had formerly housed a bank. Its three underground levels, where the safes had been kept, were well suited to a Gestapo headquarters. Occasionally, Honza was given permission to visit her mother. Fredy Mayer would escort her to the Pečkarna until he too was arrested.
After many interrogations, which yielded little because of her skill at parrying questions, Milena was sent first to a camp at Benesov for persons who had consorted with Jews and then to a remand prison in Dresden. Here the damp cold of her cell and the starvation diet dealt her health a blow from which it never fully recovered. She suffered from articular rheumatism and losi forty pounds in next to no time. Almost a year later she was informed that the proceedings against her were being dropped for lack of evidence and that she was being brought back to Prague for discharge. In Pankrac Prison, however, instead of being set free, she was given a “protective arrest” order, providing that she was to be sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Once again little Honza came to see her. Milena never forgot the sight of the long-legged child disappearing down the corridor beside the prison guard, striding self-confidently into a homeless, motherless world. Milena was never to see her child again.
At the end of October 1939—Milena had already been in prison for some weeks—the first student demonstrations against the German tyranny took place. A hundred and twenty students and schoolchildren were killed. On November 18 the National Socialists imposed martial law. Tens of thousands were arrested and sent to prisons or concentration camps. The persecution of the Jews was intensified from day to day. The Charles University of Prague and all institutions of higher learning were closed, first for a period of three years, then indefinitely.
* Milena JesenskS, “Prague—On the Morning of March 15, 1939,” PHtomnoit, March 22, 1939.
* Milena Jesenska, “Prague—On the Morning of March 15, 1939,”
* Brod, Franz Kafka, cine Biographic, p. 278.
* Literally, “Soldiers Live Atop Their Guns.”
* Milena Jesenska, “This Concerns Us All,” Pritomnost, June 14, 1939,