Unknown heroine by the radio station

The panel exhibition “Unknown heroine by the radio station” introduces the story of a doctor from the paramedic team who treated the wounded by the Czech Radio building during the worst fighting on 21 August 1968.

The exhibition is based on her letter, which is deposited in the National Museum’s collection. The letter the young doctor wrote to her parents a week after the invasion gives unique testimony about the situation in the streets of occupied Prague, as well as evidence of the courage of this young woman. The letter offers a singular view of events in the capital from the perspective of a paramedic. “The shooting started again around the radio station; our people set tanks, personnel carriers and ammunition supply vehicles on fire.  It was terrible, I have never been so scared in my life as I was during those several hours.  Machine gun bullets were flying around us, ammunition was exploding, tanks were on fire and it was all a chaotic carousel – avoiding the bullets and shrapnel from exploding ammunition, collecting the wounded, putting them in cars, taking them to hospitals, coming back and doing it all over again, until after several hours the horror stopped,” the medic recounts in her letter.