Zdena Čellárová

"The war ended in 1945 and what I remember was from my parents. They said that a big raid on Prague was reported on May Sunday and the parents were afraid because there were factories where the engineering industry was, they were afraid this would be all bombed, so me and my sister, who is four years older than me, were taken to my grandmother in Velena, that's about four kilometers from here, and we were there. But the grandmother, the old woman, did not realize, grabbed the two of us and led us to Velen to a kind of a grove. But there all the people gathered, they had the opportunity from above to bury us and that was it. And I witnessed, even though I was so small, I remember seeing a man shot dead in the field before we reached the grove."

"I went to primary school here in Čakovice, I finished the eighth grade. My father's wish was for me to go to a so-called family school to get prepared for her life, to be able to cook, to know how to take care of children, and also the basics if I went to the office, accounting and typing. However, this wish was not fulfilled by my father, because the school was canceled at that time. So my school was over, the holidays were over, and my dad decided I should work in a factory. But he had no idea what it was, and I didn't have one either. So I, at the age of fourteen, I went to Avia's office, where I described so-called technological procedures on a typewriter I couldn't master much. And my earnings, if you are interested, per hour, the hourly wage was 1.50 crowns."