Anna Čechová

"So there we were, there were, I think, about forty of us in that cellar, but it was really war by then, there was shooting. We couldn't go out at all, my mother always went out in the morning before it got light and in the evening when it got dark they went to milk the cows. We had two cows, so they went to milk the cows and brought milk to the cellar and we as children and they did too, so we actually had that livelihood there, so that's how we lived. Well, but then it was, it was about the third or fourth day that we were there in the cellar at the top of the hill and my dad came and said, 'Well, kids, we don't have a house anymore, it's gone.' But fortunately the cattle, it kind of got wiped out and the cattle stayed there, so at least we had that livelihood."

"So we kept hearing this rumbling, you could hear the rumbling all the time, and even when the guys got together, we were like kids listening. 'Well, it's already in the Carpathians, it's already in the Carpathians.' Then it was coming closer and closer. Then they were saying, 'They're already in Bratislava, they're already in Bratislava.' Only, when it got here after they were already advancing closer and closer, the Morava spilled out. But why? Because the Germans drained the reservoirs, the dams here, the Vranov Dam, and whatever smaller dams were around, they all drained. And the Morava and the Dyje collided and spilled out, so there was water here up to Tvrdonice, almost up to the houses."