“If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” Part 9
We have reached the ninth and final part of our serialized reading of “If I had been a boy, I would have been shot…” by Jaroslava Skleničková. The war is over, and Jaroslava’s account takes us from the traumas of her return to the present day, and her life with her husband Mirek in the new Lidice. But first, David Vaughan sums up the story so far.
The book began with Jaroslava recalling a contented and very ordinary childhood. Her world is turned upside down when the Nazis destroy her home village of Lidice in June 1942. She describes the shock of arriving in Germany at the Ravensbrück concentration camp, the difficulties of adapting, and the friendships that she makes. Then comes the drama and fear of the death march, as the Nazis evacuate the camp, and finally the surviving women of Lidice manage to escape into territory liberated by the Red Army. A few days later the war is over. Now the time has come to return home and to face the reality of what has happened in Lidice. Veronika Hyks reads.
