Vladimír Dvořák

"I didn't catch them here, I was in the hospital. I was just with my ears. My wife suffered the most. She was scared, the boy was just three years old, there were planes flying over us, it was always buzzing. But for them to come directly to Rokytnice, no. They were approaching Prague, everything was moving down. But I had co-workers who paid the price: in Harrachov, in the glassworks, someone set off a siren when the tanks arrived. That was nothing for the Communists, and the director had to leave on the spot. His son-in-law, Vasek Kratochvíl, whose mother came from Tříč and they lived in Rokytnice, then married the daughter of the director, Stříbrný. They both had to leave on the spot. They couldn't find work except in the mines. So they came to the mines and I had such co-workers. While still in the mines, the young son of the director, who was there for a summer job, because he was studying mechanical engineering in Jablonec, heard a siren in the mines, so he also turned on the siren in the mines. It's at the end of Harrachov under the waterfalls. So the director also had to leave on the spot."

"I was also lucky that the people in Tříč took me in. At that time it was after the war, there was nothing to buy. The peasants helped out with eggs or other foodstufs, whatever they could, because then everything was on tickets. My parents, in turn, had access to these things thanks to me, because the neighbours also tried to pull me out of sickness and malnutrition, which was good. I can say I was lucky to have neighbors in that respect."