For now, it seems the Germans have decided to pass on another victory. People used to say that we should have, as the expression goes now, “expand”. Mussolini’s speech yesterday also set a conciliatory note. At such an ebb of events, we, the Czechs, remain stranded, like jellyfish washed ashore by the tide and doomed to perish.
It has been announced that the Estates Theatre will be taken over by the Germans. An official has been knocking on people’s doors asking to inspect their telephones. Rumour has it that they’re installing microphones in the phones and listening in on calls. Things are starting to get serious. No more “Kraft durch Freude” – that “strength through joy” nonsense. New jokes continue to emerge, people are still spouting reactionary rhetoric, sweetened with sentimental phrases about the nation’s roots. Czech plays are still put on, and E.F. Burian is still able to write an article about theatre for Přítomnost. Peroutka is still able to write an editorial in Lidové noviny about the decline of France and England [sic]. People can still cheer enthusiastically at the Ostrava performance of “Libuše” and will do the same at the Prague performance. They are still adorning the graves of their loved ones with flowers. My God, look what has happened to us! The Gestapo and the English [sic] Embassy will still issue a visa for 100,000 CZK. We still have access to good food and drink. But it won’t last long. And look what we do: We console ourselves with pilgrimages to the dead – pilgrimages to the past. My God, look what has happened to us!