Zdislava Kodešová

“It’s kind of a provisional statement: ‘We confirm that Josef Štancl’s company, a warehouse store with flour, fats and agricultural crops, Příkopy 31, Prague 1, tacitly approved that their office worker O. Němcová,’ I think her name was Otýlie Němcová, I still remember her from when I visited my dad a couple of times, ,code name Marta,’ they all had code names, ,could use the company’s rooms and equipment at any time of day or night for the purposes of the leaders of a military resistance group.’ Which means that father didn’t know about it but the resistance fighters were hiding somewhere there. ‘Thus allowing the creation of a resistance center that assumed significant importance over time. The leading figures of military resistance worked in that office, as well as hid themselves and their belongings, they were fed there and so on. These were Josef Balabán, code name Pavel, lieutenant colonel Josef Mašín, code name Pobera, staff captain Václav Morávek, code name Vojta, lieutenant colonel of the general staff Jaroslav Kašpar, code name Pátý, and secretary of the military resistance Josef Eliášek, code name Plicka, and many others.’ This lady, Němcová, was dad’s secretary. They didn’t tell my father anything because they were all single but father was married and already had us kids, so they were scared something could happen to him. Father allegedly didn’t know about it but he suspected something because once when he came to the office and there were blankets scattered on the divan in the entrance hall of the office. So he asked: ‘What is this? Who was here?’ And Ms. Němcová jumped to her feet and said: ‘Excuse me, I must have scattered it’, a quickly started cleaning it. Dad found it suspicious, thinking something must have been going on there.”