Milan Čapek

“We were listening to London broadcasting a lot at home. Once I saved my grandpa from going to concentration lager. He knew too well, when London began broadcasting. We were the only household with a radio in the unit. Grandpa had an ear on a London radio. I don’t know how it was exactly, I just saw the door knob turning all of a sudden. And I was nine or ten years old, probably nine, and I thought it may be Mr. Štelcik (note: German neighbour and former soldier of Wehrmacht). So I ran to the door and made a long step and screamed out loud, "Mr. Štelcik, I will not let you in!" Grandpa immediately retuned the radio, switched it off and went to work. And that just happened... always in a larger house lived a German. That was fatal to Mr. Šlosar (note: next house neighbour), who also listened to London. They sent him to concentration camp and he never came back. So it was all that simple.”

"I remember that next to the house, where I lived, there were something, I am not sure what they called it, something like a town house. It was next to the tenant flats. And I know a certain man, a chemist I think, lived there. A very decent (note: German) family. They had a daughter two years older, about thirteen she was. I do remember they were decent. They got scared the end of war came and the Germans lost so the whole family poisoned themselves. I remember we looked at their coffins being carried out of the house. As I say, they were decent and didn’t hurt anyone, got on with the Czechs well. And on the other side there lived a German man. We called him ‚gauleiter‘ or what kind of a rank he had. He wore a uniform and the exact same moustache as Hitler, including the hairdo. I remember him well. And he used to check if someone had a light on at night and so on. He was the kind of person to let everyone know that he was a German. I don’t recall exactly when they started to produce pioneers, motorcycles... And suddenly I looked out the street of 5 May and saw the bloke riding the motorbike and still wearing the same moustache. So you see decent people who rather poisoned themselves and this kind, who tried to scare us during the war and remained living happily amongst us.”