Josef Bezchleba

"We didn't know where we were. That it is Strašnice, yes, we knew that. But we didn't know what kind of unit it was. And the first thing there was going to the movie theater, or whatever it was. And the very first thing that happened was the anti-religious agitation. There, I litteraly got sick of the actor Bek, even though I didn't know him much before, I didn't know. He was dressed there in a priest's soutane, his belly suitably stuffed. And he sang the most mocking anti-religious songs. And that was the first welcome to the military service and we didn't even know who we were with. Then the boys found out somewhere that they were gunners. Otherwise, the agitation was mainly on us. Pressure."

"Even before we started this camp, there was a club leader, an eighteen-year-old boy. His name was Slováček. He was very popular because he was young and handsome. There were two leaders of the club, it was a joint camp, Varnsdorf and us. It was a center camp. So we should have discussed the program, the progress. So I invited him to the clubhouse in Podluží, he knew absolutely nothing, he was a beginner. What I did not advise him, he would not know. Then I said, let's go to church in Jetřichovice with a few boys. And he was completely petrified and said he didn't know this was still being done in this way. And then he was not talking to me anymore, no more talks. Then at the camp he was supposed to be in the leader's tent with me, he refused. He just didn't want anything to do with me anymore."

"In that secluded place of ours, all the fronts from Brno passed there. The Russians, I know that they looted hay there...that's one interesting thing, our house was old, everything was rotten, but there was hay in the attic. And of course they used everything, everywhere for the horses...they looted hay and one of them fell through the floor into the corridor. And I know I was getting angry, I already dared to say something to my surprise. And why they take our hay. And he says: “Mě náda, tobě náda” ... I didn't know what it was about, only then one boy, who understood a bit, said: “He needs it and so do you”. Then the Romanian army came there, the Hungarians...we felt terribly sorry for them. It was warm, not like now, but it was warm in those May days. And they on those wagons, those military cloaks, it was just dusting behind them. They were barely visible. Well, it was moving... I don't know where, I don't know where they went...but from Brno the front moved through Vysočina. It was such a strange, turbulent time. We experienced it... the end of the war, the joy that the war was over. But we don't know what it brought us, any benefit exactly...there were a lot of horses, I know there were forty horses in our meadow. Actually, the horses that were taken away...then they were looking for people who would drive them to Svitavy. One of our neighbors pretended to be a hero, but after two kilometers he came back because he was supposed to sit on a horse and he did not know how."