Věra Burešová

"At that time, the soldiers of the Warsaw Pact came here, they occupied Czechoslovakia. I was just carrying laundry to the laundry in a carriage and there was a soldier standing at the intersection, directing the traffic. And I said: 'The Russians on tanks, after all, they liberated us, so what harm would they do to us?' ‘That’s how I was today. I took the laundry, I drove back and I saw people starting to panic. They started occupying stores and buying supplies. They were there with cars, taking a bag of potatoes, a bag of flour; because they thought, the Russians were here, that there would be a lot of us here and there would not be anything to eat. And, I remember that I hung the curtains and we had the TV on. Jarmila Korandová from the Brno radio station reported: 'So now I can hear footsteps going upstairs, banging on the door and you I won't say anything, they are already here.' Therefore, of course, that was the end. Well, we at the school this year 1968 of course, went through background checks. Comrades from the national committee came and asked us if we approved the entry of troops into our territory. We had to answer that."

"I am a war child, I experienced the Second World War. As children, of course, we were terrified of it. There was a cellar in our house, my father made double doors there and we left the door open. And whoever, when the sirens started to sound, people of course they were afraid and ran to us. We locked ourselves down in the cellar and waited there for them to blow the horn again and it was over."