Heda Ambrova heating the log cabin

This photo is from the Turiec region, near the village of Motycky, where we were in hiding. It was taken at the beginning of 1945, and shows me, Heda Ambrova, at that time Hechtova. After the snow fell, we had to set up guards. While there wasn’t snow, no one would find our tracks, but afterwards it was dangerous. There were paths to the cabin from each side. He who knew the surrounding terrain could find his way there. We were erasing our tracks. I was the youngest and also the lightest, so on the way down I went first. And on the way up, I went last. We made two brooms with which we erased our tracks in the snow. Once at night we heard someone shouting my name. They were looking for me. He must have known it there, because he’d gone around the guard. It turned out that my war husband, who was a doctor at Stare Hory, had fallen ill. They’d diagnosed him with typhus. They couldn’t keep him at the base, and so were looking for a group that would take care of him. We went to get him. We quickly put together a stretcher, on which we carried him up. Karol and Vojtech Kürti, Domin and I went. We were this inseparable foursome. He was in the town of Rybov. As soon as we brought him up, we had to isolate him. We built a log cabin, lightning-quick. There was lots of wood. In it we put this little oven, with an open fire. That’s where we put up my husband along with his brother. We’d bring them food there. He got through it and got well. But someone told him that we’d wanted to shoot him. There was an unwritten law that partisans don’t leave their wounded at the mercy of the Germany army, but shoot them. But we hadn’t wanted to shoot him. In the end it turned out that he’d had hepatitis. He left us in great anger. After the war we had a relatively good relationship. He moved here and there. He finally dropped anchor at the Na Frantisku Hospital in Prague. We didn’t get divorced until 1946.

Photos from this interviewee