help she could get it from nowhere. She could not maintain her rosarium any longer and both she and her rosarium were aging rapidly. In 1934, at the inauguration of the rose garden on the Petřín Hill in Prague, professor Karl Domin had to concede: "The Dolná Krupá rosarium is far from what it was some time ago. The park is gradually being destroyed. Large parts of the park are being cultivated with potatoes and corn, to ensure the means of survival. The old countess lives alone in her large palace. However, the few visitors she still has can still feel how great her love of roses is." However, changes occurred not only in Dolná Krupá. In 1934 the Union of German Friends of Roses was merged into the third section of the German Society for Horticulture and the headquarters moved to Berlin. It was one of the measures taken by the authorities of the Third Reich to gain control over various professional organizations. The publication of the magazines of the Union of German Friends of Roses was also discontinued and replaced by the printing of year books. The 1938 year book is the last mentioning the Dolná Krupá rosarium. After the Division of Czechoslovakia and the beginning of World War II nobody was interested in roses any more. Due to the war, manpower for the rose garden was scarce and every year the rosarium fell into a worse state. Towards the end of the war the palace was ransacked by the Red Army and the park was destroyed. The cottage in which the countess was living in those days, called the "Swiss mansion", was completely demolished by the villagers who used the bricks as building materials to repair their own houses. Countess Marie Henrieta Chotek, old, sick and completely destitute, had to rely on the charity of the villagers in order to survive. On February 13, 1946, at age 83, the countess of the roses died while being cared for by the nuns of a neighboring monastery. Marie Henrieta Chotek was buried in the family mausoleum, located in the graveyard next to the parrish church of Dolná Krupá. The mausoleum had been built in 1895 by her father, Rudolf Chotek, and had been spared by the war. Legacy All the properties of the Chotek family were nationalized by the Czechoslovak communist authorities. The palace was converted into a psychiatric