Bylo to tak? – Romportlová Ludmila (2013)

… the writer and the doctor ask each other and confront their memories of youth. They experienced it in the pre-war and wartime period. She relies on her diaries, starting with naive notes from a high school junior, who later becomes a student at a family school. This almost idyllic life is brutally interrupted by total mobilization. He is in a more difficult position – he carries all his memories only in his mind. Before us unfolds the story of a gifted high school student, a senior, who is captivated by theater, but after graduation, he is lured into medicine. However, it is the year 1939, and universities are closed by the Nazis. The lives of both protagonists are infused, despite the oppressive atmosphere of pre-war and wartime, with enthusiasm for life, a desire for knowledge, and a determination to educate themselves and help the young and subsequently truncated republic as much as possible. We feel the excitement breathing from the description of the all-Sokol gathering, cultural and theatrical performances, whether the narrator is merely a spectator or a performer… From everything, the reader breathes a now hard-to-understand passion for public affairs, the ethos of patriotic intellectuals of the First Republic.