Alja Vlasáková

Dr Alja Vlasáková, née Pujmanová, was born in Prague on 29 May 1937. Her father Jiří Pujman worked as an insurance company clerk and her mother Marie Pujmanová was a graduated teacher. Both parents got involved in the resistance at the beginning of the war through military officers whom the father had befriended earlier during his military service. Jiří Pujman was a member of one of the groups within Obrana národa (Nation’s Defence) led by Major Sadílek. He was active primarily in Prague 7-Holešovice, printing and distributing the V boj periodical and coordinating the preparations for an anti-Nazi uprising. It was with a great deal of luck that he escaped arrest by the Gestapo in late May 1940, left the country and made it to the Middle East via the Balkans, joining General Karel Klapálek’s army. The Gestapo arrested and interrogated the mother; she was later released conditionally but then interned in Svatobořice between 1942 and 44. After father’s escape and mother’s arrest, Alja briefly lived with friends in Žíchovec near Prachatice from June 1940 and then at her grandma’s in Bavorov where she experienced the end of the war. Her father fought in Tobruk and Dunkirk. He was assigned to the Combined Brigade in April 1945 and returned to Prague with it one month later. Alja Vlasáková later graduated in medicine and worked as a paediatrician. She lives in Prague with her husband.