Margit Bartošová

„Tatínek byl původně tesař. A potom, to byla taky zajímavá věc, musel – základní vojenskou službu absolvoval v československé armádě – ale potom, když byla mobilizace, tak se nechal mobilizovat. Musel. A potom, když teda byl protektorát Böhmen und Mähren, tak musel na frontu. Takže byl v podstatě celých šest let v německé armádě, a když se vrátil, tak byl moc rád. Takhle – on byl v americkém zajetí a našel tam nějakou dobrou práci. Asi byl potom u nějakých dobrých lidí, že chtěli, aby tam zůstal a aby nás tam s maminkou dostal přes Červený kříž, jenže tatínek chtěl zpátky. Takže si přesně pamatuju, že v roce čtyřicet pět na Vánoce nám ho jeden [člověk] přivedl.“

"Actually, immediately after the 1990s, the former people who lived here, who were born and raised here, started coming here, and of course the first trip was to the museum, because before the revolution they didn't have the opportunity to go to the archive or anywhere, so only then did the way open up for them. Many of them wrote very beautiful books about the history of the cities and towns here. The first stop was Špindlerův Mlýn. The gentleman, unfortunately, died last year, Mr. Richter, the first book he wrote here about those cities, there are always a lot of photos in those books. And they were lucky that a lot of people were still alive, that they could still contact those people and that they could get some family photos, some interesting things from them. So I have to say that we had a lot of acquaintances among these people. For example, a beautiful book is about Lánov, Lower and Middle Lánov. I then used it, because I actually started accompanying German tourists after I retired."

"But he had problems in that museum with Flégl, and he just... One story as an example: Everyone certainly remembers that there were so-called Swedish shirts, it was a shirt with those buttons. My husband had one and he came to work in it and he said, 'What are you wearing?' And he says, 'Well, that's the fashion now, it's called a Swedish shirt.' And he says, 'Well, if it was Russian, no one would wear it.'' He really was such a zealot. Also, when we back then, but that's later. When we beat Russia in hockey, as it was the great glory, there was a band set up in the car factory - that was actually after 68, in 69, right? And there was a parade through the city, I have never seen a bigger parade in my life, and all the museum workers were at the house where Mr. Flégl, the former director of the museum, lived, and they wanted to break his windows there. And we had to restrain them a lot so that they wouldn't do it.''

"At that time there at the factory there were... well, it was such a concentration camp. It was such a long building with several rooms, and Jewish women lived there during the war, we called them Jewish women, because the Gross Rosen concentration camp was actually not far across the border. There were a lot of them in Žacléř and also in Bernartice. They worked in the textile factory and I, so I have the feeling that no one cared about them much, because they were walking outside, that my mother and I went on a walk with them. And my mother talked to them. Well, and now to that: the war ended, they didn't have employees for the textile factory, and somehow in the 1950s, when the monasteries were dissolved, in the same camp where the nuns were during the war, excuse me, the Jewish women, there the nuns lived, who worked in that factory. And we were friends with them, because they were so young, cheerful. They always waited for us when we left school, they came to see us off, because I had to walk half an hour to school there and another half hour back. They rode bikes there, went to play football with us, but they were so cheerful. I don't know where they disappeared. One of the nuns even smuggled us into their dormitory, because they had such a chapel built there and wanted to show us how beautiful it was there. The Mother Superior was not allowed to know that. They had a wonderful choir, which made a lot of people go to church because they always sang in church there."